Strike to take place if centre fails to drop the recommendations of the Bibek Debroy committee
Chennai: SRMU has threatened to go on indefinite strike from November 23 if the Centre fails to drop the recommendations of the Bibek Debroy committee that proposed a slew of measures to reform railways.Talking to mediapersons here, N. Kanniah, general secretary of SRMU, the largest recognized union of southern railway employees, dismissed the committee recommendation as an attempt to privatize railways and said that SRMU will join other unions in the nation wide indefinite strike from the aforesaid date.
The strike ballot will be held in the first week of October and the strike notice would be served to the Centre on November 5, Kanniah added.“If the Centre does not pay heed and drop the committee recommendations of the committee before that, we will join other unions and strike work with the support of the people,” Kanniah said.
“Indian Railways offers 85 different concessions worth Rs 25,000 crore per annum. If the government invests Rs10,000 crore per annum, railways can be improved and the desired amenities provided to the people,” the SRMU general secretary claimed pointing to the failure of railways privatization in UK. Alleging that the intention of privatization was to downsize the railways, Kanniah asserted that over 5.7lakh group D employees would lose their jobs and the 2.5 lak posts that will fall vacant in the next four years will not be filled if the Debroy committee report is
implemented.
Hundreds of railway employees who have been observing black shirt protest for a week now, also staged a demonstration in front of the divisional railway manager’s office demanding the Centre to drop the committee recommendations.
