Tamil Nadu: Flash bus strike leaves thousands stranded

Chennai: Government transport employees went on strike on Thursday crippling bus services across Tamil Nadu and leaving thousands of commuters stranded.

The strike was declared late evening after the negotiations by the staff unions with state transport department demanding wage revision among other things, failed. However transport minister, M.R.Vijayabhaskar reconvened and called for yet another round of talks to resolve the dispute.

Of the 46 unions that participated in the final round of talks chaired by transport minister, M.R.Vijayabhaskar, held at Chromepet, 13 major unions including Labour Progressive Federation (LPF), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) and All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) came out with the strike announcement.

The ruling AIADMK union, ATP (Anna Thozhirsanga Peravai) is not expected to participate in the strike, but its members could only be a small percentage of the total 1,30,000 workforce.

Unless the deadlock is broken quickly to get the 22,000-strong fleet back on roads, the state could face a crisis in terms of public transport, that too during festival time.     

“We are sorry for putting people through this difficulty, but we are helpless as we have been fighting for over an year for our wage revision and clearing our dues amounting to Rs 7,543 crore, which include retirement benefits and provident fund benefits” said M.Shanmugam from LPF,” adding that they are still open for negotiations.

The striking employees of state transport have been insisting for a pay scale revision to Rs 30,000. However, the authorities have agreed in principle to pay only '24,400, which the employees feel is a great injustice for the workers who deal with severe traffic and stress on a daily basis.

With 70 per cent of the 22,000 buses going off roads, public transport crippled in the city and commuters were stranded for long hours. While the bus services at Poonamallee, Tambaram, Koyambedu, Vadapalani, Tondiarpet and Thiruvanmiyur bus depots were stopped by 6 pm, the rest of the bus stops stopped operating after 8 pm when the strike was officially announced by the unions.

The office-goers were put to hardship, as they could not reach home as services were suspended. At Koyambedu bus terminus, passengers protested against low frequency of buses and urged the government to resolve the issue before Pongal.