Outsourced employees gherao Vidhan Sabha

Tribune News Service

Shimla, February 13

Outsourced employees under the banner of HP Outsourced Karamchari Union gheraoed the Vidhan Sabha today, demanding a policy for recruitment and regularisation of their service.

The employees staged a protest march from Cart Road to Vidhan Sabha and gathered at the Panchayat Bhwan, bringing movement of traffic to a standstill for two hours.

CITU and CPM leaders like Theog legislator Rakesh Singha, Kashmir Thakur, Jagat Ram, Prem Gautam, Vijender Mehra and others participated in the protest and raised anti-government slogans.

Various employee unions from health, the IPH, forest, food and civil supplies, secretariat, education and electricity board participated in the protest march.

After the protest, union president Yashpal and secretary Nokh Ram submitted a six-point demand charter to the state labour minister stressing their demand.

“The government is misleading public by saying that the number of outsourced employees is 10,000 whereas there are 42,000 outsourced employees in the state”, said Nok Ram, secretary of the union.

The union leaders demanded that the state government should ensure a halt to exploitation of “outsourced workers at the hands of the private contractors”, who were violating labour laws by making the workers work for more than 10 to 12 hours a day. All workers should get equal and minimum wages of Rs 18,000 per month.