COIMBATORE: Cleanliness in the city is likely to be compromised as sanitary workers of the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) have announced an indefinite strike from October 2 to press for their 18-point charter of demands. More than 7,000 people are employed as sanitary workers with the CCMC, including 2,750 permanent employees. The temporary workers demand that their jobs be regularised and salary increased.
City Health Officer (CHO) Dr Pradeep V Krishna Kumar held talks with the representatives of sanitary workers’ welfare associations on Tuesday night, but it ended in failure. Following this, 10 workers’ associations formed a federation and have announced an indefinite strike.
Tamil Nadu Annal Ambedkar Sanitary Workers Welfare Association’s General Secretary Selvam said despite pleading with the officials on multiple occasions, no one bothered to listen to their demands. Of the 18, two major demands are making regularisation of temporary workers and revising wages as GO 62.
“According to norms, for every 240 houses, 3 sanitary workers including a sweeper, garbage collector and a drainage cleaner must be deployed to keep the streets clean. And Coimbatore city, which is now equal to a metropolitan city must have at least 6,000 permanent sanitary workers considering the current population. But we just have about half of the workers for a city that produces around 1,200 tonnes of garbage every day. The officials must make all temporary labourers permanent and hike the wages from Rs 323 per day to `721 by passing a resolution in the council,” he added.
Speaking to TNIE, CCMC Commissioner M Prathap said as majority of the demands put forth by the sanitary workers’ welfare association federation are policy matters that need to be decided by the state government, they couldn’t accept their charter of demands.
“The State government has asked all the corporations to wait on the GO 62, as they are planning to revise it soon based on a committee’s report. However, we accept their ESI & PF benefits demands which will be implemented soon. I’ll be chairing another meeting with the workers on Friday and hope we can sort out the issues,” Prathap said.