Chennai: Finding fault with Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisami's approach towards the strike warning of transport workers, Leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin on Saturday asked Palanisami to negotiate with the trade unions directly, instead of entrusting the matter to the transport minister.
CM should promise a new agreement for wages and protect the industrial peace in the state by avoiding the transport strike. He should be aware of the hardships to people by a transport strike at the peak of summer and come forward to hold direct talks with the workers, he demanded.
About 1.43 lakh employees are working in the transport corporations and the 60,000 retired employees had not received their pension, leave encashment, provident fund and gratuity, he said.
Instead of compensating the losses of transport corporations, the government is utilising the money deducted from the workers for their retirement benefits to run the administration; he charged and said this is a clear anti-labour policy. The attitude of the government had not helped to create trust on the government and the six years of AIADMK government had affected labour rights and industrial peace, Stalin added.
He also accused the state government of pushing the workers into protests and strikes. The AIADMK government had deducted about '2,000 crore from the salary of employees from April 1, 2003 and used the amount for administrative expenses. The money had not been deposited with the pension trust of employees, but the state is resorting to cheap publicity by creating an impression that it is allocating money from its own coffer and such acts had increased the anger of workers causing obstacles to negotiations, Stalin said.
As the retired employees had not received their benefits, they are unable to meet the expenses for their children's education and family functions. Despite, repeated requests by the unions, the state had not deposited the amount deducted from the employees for retirement benefits, Stalin alleged.
