Chennai: Transport unions announced that their strike would continue for the third day on Saturday despite the Madras High Court asking them to end their agitation and report to work. An appeal by transport minister M.R. Vijayabhaskar, quoting the court order, to the workers to return to work also failed to cut ice with the striking employees saying that they will face the court order through legal means.
Lakhs of commuters were stranded for the second consecutive day as school students, office goers and those travelling out of their cities and towns were the most affected. The transport employees, who have been demanding pay hike and better work conditions, stuck to their stand by saying they will continue with their agitation until the government meets their demands.
The government warned of severe action against those who continue with their strike. Since the employees have adopted a belligerent stand, commuter woes would continue on Saturday as well.
Govt staff, office-goers suffer a lot
Government employees and office-goers reported late to duty on Friday and some of them who depend on government buses also took leave. “About five per cent of government employees took leave and women working in government offices took permission to leave early on Friday”, said a state official serving at the secretariat.
The situation with secretariat staff was actually better as 80 per cent of the women government staff rely on private tempos to reach office and home. Similar was the situation with Teynampet DMS complex, but offices located at Ezhilagham, Kuralagam and Ripon Buildings witnessed delayed arrival of staff due to bus strike.
“I came late by 90 minutes to my office and my department in-charge understood the situation. The train from Pallavaram was crowded and I was not able to take the regular 8 am train due to crowd. I left two jam packed trains and took the third one to reach Park station and then took an auto reach Chennai metro water head office,” said a metro water section clerk.
“To enable employees reach home on time a few private companies in Guindy, KK Nagar and Ekkathuthangal asked the employees to leave early and we also instructed all our staff to shut down their computers half an hour in advance” said V. T. Balaji, head (administration), Skylark HR solutions. However, traffic was usual in Chennai and all the arterial roads.
