CHENNAI: The two-day-old indefinite strike resorted to by the employees of the state transport corporation in Tamil Nadu has been called off temporarily by the trade unions by heeding a request made by the Madras High Court.
The trade unions-CITU and Anna Thozhirsanga Peravai (ATP)-have given the undertaking before the bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy that they would temporarily defer the strike until January 19 when a conciliation meeting is scheduled to discuss the issue of defreezing the dearness allowance due for the retired employees of the STCs before the Labour Commissioner.
“The senior counsel submits that the unions will withhold the strike in the larger interest of the public in view of the Pongal festival. They will report for duty from tomorrow,” the bench said.
Senior counsel Vijay Narayan gave the undertaking on behalf of the striking unions of CITU and ATP. The bench said there wouldn’t be any victimisation of the striking workers as promised by the Additional Advocate General (AAG) J Ravindran that no disciplinary action would be taken against them.
Refusing to declare the strike illegal and unconstitutional as sought by the petitioner Paul Kithion, a student of Chennai, the bench, however, felt the traded unions would have waited till the conciliation process scheduled for January 19 took place.
Saying that the state is responsible for providing public transport facilities, the bench noted is it can take legitimate action permissible in law against the striking workers if they resort to illegal activities.
The AAG declined to accept the suggestion of paying an ad-hoc amount of Rs. 2000 for January for each of the 82,000 retired employees. However, relenting later, he said the state would sort out the issues between the STCs and the employees.