Hyderabad: The 52-day Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) strike has created the record of being the longest protest, while being a great failure.
During the separate Telangana moment led by now Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, the same RTC had struck work for 42 days as a part of the Sakala Janula Samme.
The current RTC strike, called off on Monday, also makes history in that during the 52 days, 30 employees have died, including due to suicides.
The strike has also not seen any logical end. Usually, any strike is called off after some assurance from the government or accepting of some or the other demands of employees. But the JAC has not got any assurance from the state government.
Not a single of more than 40 demands has been conceded, despite the JAC itself dropping its demand of merging RTC with the state government.
After dropping its main demand, the RTC JAC came forward to call off the strike provided the government allows workers to join duties without any conditions.
But the government did not react to this proposal. Finally, the JAC announced calling off of the strike on Monday, without getting anything in return.
The High Court’s intervention into the RTC strike came of no help to RTC employees after it was referred to the labour court.
If the labour court deems the RTC strike illegal, the future of around 50,000 RTC employees will hang in balance.
The just-concluded RTC strike is perhaps the only workers’ agitation that has ended without achieving anything, though the 52-day strike of the corporation workers is the longest in the history of various strikes.
