Malls shut, no pay for guards, parking staff

Sanjay Yadav

Gurugram, May 13

With malls being shut for the past two months, hundreds of workers employed there have been left in the lurch.

Parking staff, security guards, sanitation staff, lift operators and shop employees have moved the local administration claiming they have not been paid. They are demanding the opening of malls.

The employees have been staging protests across the city with the latest being from the guards at South Point Mall. Though the service has been outsourced through an agency, a guard said that they were not being paid citing closure of mall.

“We have not even got our wages for March. We were told that we will be paid only when the mall pays the contractor. But that has not happened as the mall is shut. We have no money to feed our families and we want the administration to step in,” said Raghu, a guard at Cross Point Mall.

The woes are shared by guards at banks and ATMs. Om Parkash, a native of Etawah in UP who is deployed as a guard at an ATM booth at MG Road, said he has not been paid and has been threatened that he would be shunted out.

“I fear that I will lose my job and two months’ salary. The mall management told us to talk to the security agency and it asked us to wait. I am managing lunch and dinner at the community food site,” said guard Om Parkash.

Not just guards, but local housekeeping workers too have been hit. “I used to clean toilets at the mall. It’s not my fault if it’s shut, but the contractor says no mall, no salary. I have two children to feed,” says Pushpa, a native of Bengal employed on Golf Course road.

A senior officer of a local mall management said that only outsourced employees are facing problem. Agencies are not paying the workers.

The agencies, in turn, blame the malls for not clearing their dues. “How do we pay our employees when malls are not clearing the bills. We can’t feed all of them from our pocket. We keep malls going all year. Now, they should help us,” said Ramesh Yadav, a parking contractor.