Municipal Commissioner K. Bhagyalakshmi has appealed to the outsourced and contract sanitation workers not to go on strike from Monday (July 11) as proposed by them, and asked them to continue the waste disposal and cleaning operations in all wards to avoid inconvenience to the public.
The Commissioner, at an all-party meeting held on Saturday, asked the union leaders to ensure that the staff came for work as there were only 135 regular public health workers in the city and the bulk of the works was being done by 409 outsourced workers. “I appeal to the people in all wards not to discard their waste in the open places and on the streets outside their houses, but keep it with them in disposable bags in their house till the sanitation staff come and collect it,” she said.
Trade union representatives told the Commissioner that they were bound by the union’s State-wide call for a strike and would not attend to the duties until their demand for equal pay for equal work, regularisation of their services, payment of health allowance dues, and fulfilling of the promises on gratuity, pension and retirement benefits were met.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) State committee secretary V. Srinivasa Rao in a letter to the State government and all municipal commissioners appealed for fulfilling of all the promises made to the contract/outsourced employees as they performed the most difficult job in hazardous conditions.
