The offer by the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation Joint Action Committee (JAC) on Wednesday to call off the almost 50-day strike — if the government accepts their demands without any preconditions — has led to a rift among the employees.
While the JAC await the government’s response to this offer, a faction of employees, under the banner ‘JAC-1’--comprising six employee unions--have expressed displeasure and disappointment at the JAC’s announcement. And further have announced of leading the struggle.
Co-convenor of JAC-1, Hanumanth Mudiraj from the Telangana Jathiya Mazdoor Union (TJMU) told TNM, “What was the need to offer to call off the strike unconditionally? Why weren’t employees consulted before taking such a huge decision? What about the employees who killed themselves? Why is no one talking about them?”
TSRTC JAC-1 comprises of six small employee unions, most of which are Bahujan groups: Telangana Jathiya Mazdoor Union, Bahujan Kaarmika Union, Bahujan Workers’ Union, Kaarmika Parishad, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and Samajika Telangana Mazdoor Union.
Expressing disappointment at how the struggle has been led so far, Hanumanth said, “It was the JAC-1 which initially issued a strike notice on August 31, but the JAC overshadowed us. Yet, we supported them throughout, though we did not have any say in it.”
JAC-1 has condemned Ashwathama Reddy of the JAC, who was spearheading the strike. It has also questioned his intent behind offering to call off the strike when their main demand – to merge TSRTC with the government to avail government job benefits like pensions – was not met. JAC had dropped the demand for the merger earlier, and the remaining 25 demands deal with subjects like women’s welfare, fewer working hours and so on.
“When Ashwathama Reddy told the employees that they will drop the idea of merger, 90% of the workers were against it. Yet, he went ahead. The employees participated in the strike because they wanted the merger, that was their primary demand. Later, he completely surrendered, and said that they will re-join their duties without any of their demands being met. It is suspicious that he took such a decision, when the case was transferred to the Labour court,” Hanumanth said.
He added, “We will continue to strike and demand the government to consider the idea of merger with the government. It is very vital to us. We don’t have any pensions and no job security.”
According to Hanumanth, the Telangana High Court had given a favourable judgement to them. “The High Court said that it could not decide if the strike was illegal or not, and transferred the matter to Labour Court. While the court cases are ongoing, what was the need to call off the strike?”
Earlier on Friday, JAC convenor, Ashwathama Reddy said, “It has been two days since we announced that we will join duties if the government ensures a peaceful environment, but the government or the TSRTC management did not take any steps towards it. The government said that it would hold another meeting. We are hopeful of a positive decision, and the strike would continue until then.”
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao held a meeting with Transport Minister Puvvada Ajay and TSRTC in-charge Managing Director, Sunil Sharma, on Thursday. However, they did not make any decision regarding the offer by the JAC to resume duties.