CHENNAI: As announced by Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Teachers Organisation and Government Employees Organisation (JACTTO-GEO), a federation of various associations of government employees, government staff and teachers on Tuesday took casual leave en masse as a mark of protest and staged demonstrations in all district headquarters, condemning the government for its failure to fulfil their long-pending demands.
M Srinivasan, state coordinator, JACTTO-GEO, said in Chennai that details from 37 districts they gathered showed that 4.22 lakh employees and teachers took part in the demonstrations after taking leave. While there were reports of work getting affected in many government offices and schools across the state due to the absence of employees, work at the secretariat in Chennai was not affected.
Of the 1,21,239 teachers in the elementary education department, 53,166 took casual leave, department sources said. According to teachers’ associations, around 40% to 50% of PG teachers and headmasters of high and higher secondary schools participated in the protests.
However, the state government officially did not provide any information on the number of employees and teachers who availed casual leave on Tuesday or the extent of the impact on work due to the protest.
Mayavan, another JACTTO-GEO coordinator, said, “Our next phase of agitation will be total strike of work,” adding that a decision on that will be taken soon. The protest on Tuesday happened after JACTTO-GEO’s talks with the four-member group of ministers on Monday failed.
Mayavan said the ruling DMK had failed to fulfil its electoral promise of restoring the old pension scheme, one of their key demands, even after four years in office. “If you cheat the employees, you will be cheated in the 2026 Assembly elections,” he added.
He recalled that, on Monday, ministers held talks for over two-and-half hours and promised to get back after consulting the CM. “The CM also came to the secretariat. The four ministers held discussions with him and left without meeting the union leaders, who were waiting for a long time,” he said, adding that this attitude amounted to “backstabbing” the employees.
He further said the four-week time sought by the state government late on Monday was only an attempt to dilute the spirit of the employees to fight for their rights and an attempt to split them.