Sanitation workers call off strike

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 31

After a dramatic day, the MC Safai Karamchari Union finally called off its strike on the eighth day today.

The UT Administration has decided to extend equal benefits such as pension and house rent allowance of a regular worker along with the current salary to daily wage sanitation workers, who have been working since 1992 or before.

Earlier in the day, union members refued to accept the offer and entered the MC House meeting venue. The workers raised slogans against the MC and the UT Administration.

However, later in the evening, at a meeting with MC Commissioner Vivek Partap Singh, they agreed to the proposal and decided to call off their strike. Meanwhile, lifting of garbage was badly hit in the city due to the strike. The sanitation workers will now clear the mess within two days. Earlier, they had stopped lifting garbage from 550 bins across the city.

The key demands of the union are regularisation of the services of 134 sanitation workers, employment to family members of deceased workers on compassionate grounds and promotion of literate sanitation workers to posts of clerk.

see also page 6