Thiruvananthapuram: With truck drivers and cleaners announcing an indefinite strike from May 2 demanding wage revision, labour commissioner K. Biju has convened a meeting on May 1 for discussing a long-term agreement with truck owners and truck drivers’ unions. With Sunday and May I being holidays, the distribution of the LPG cylinders closed on Saturday and the state would face an LPG shortage if the issue was not sorted out in the meeting on May 1, scheduled at the labour commissioner office here at 11 am.
As the issue was between the truck owners who have the contract to transport the LPG from the bottling plant and their workers, the oil companies do not have any role in fixing the wages. The truck drivers attached to IOC bottling plant at Udayamperoor, Kochi, BPCL plant at Chelari, Kozhikode, IOC plant at Kanjikode, Palakkad, and HPC plant at Irumpanam, Kochi, HPC plant at Palakkad, LPG bottling plant at BPCL plant at Kazhakuttam have announced the strike. The truck owners who transport LPG from Mangalore to Kasaragod, Kannur, Malappuram and Kozhikode will also be on strike.
However, drivers and cleaners at Paripally plant are staying away from the strike as they have already signed a long-term wage agreement with the contractors. The truck drivers are engaged in transporting cylinders from bottling plants to dealers and also empty cylinders from dealers back to the bottling plant. The issue first started with the truck drivers transporting LPG cylinders from Mangalore to northern Kerala demanding wage hike. Soon drivers of other bottling plants also raised the same demand.
