the goan I network
MARGAO
Municipal workers across the State will strike work on June 29 in protest against the inordinate delay on the part of the government to regularise the services of 1500-2000 municipal workers and the administration’s move to outsource civic jobs to the detriment
of the existing daily wage workers.
Representatives of Goa Municipal Employees Association under the leadership of President Keshav Prabhu had a meeting in the city here to discuss and deliberate the issues plaguing the municipal workers, wherein they gave the nod for a day’s strike on June 29. Before the strike, municipal workers of all the municipalities will hold a dharna outside their respective municipal councils during lunch break to highlight their plight and government’s dilly-dallying tactics to resolve their pending grievances.
After the meeting, Keshav Prabhu flanked by Goa Municipal Employees Association General Secretary Anil Shirodkar and others told the media that the meeting has resolved to go on a one-day strike on June 29 as a mark of protest against the government’s delay in regularising the services of 1500-2000 daily wage workers. Keshav warned that the municipal workers will be constrained to go on an indefinite strike if the government pays no heed to their demands.
“It’s over a year and half since the government had asked the individual municipalities to forward the list of daily wage workers eligible for regularisation. So far, not a single worker has been regularised by the government with some of the workers either passing away or have turned overage during the period,” Keshav lamented.
To add insult to injury, Keshav said the government has issued a circular to the municipal bodies to outsource routine jobs of the councils and has failed to revive the dozens of posts which had lapsed over the years. “We lodge our strong protest to the circular asking the civic bodies to outsource the municipal work. First, let the government regularise the services of the daily wage workers and then let us talk about outsourcing the municipal work,” Prabhu said.
Anil Shirodkar lamented that some of the municipal bodies, including Margao, have not implemented the DPC recommendations for months now, leaving the employees in the lurch. While saying that the municipalities is a service industry, the Association has called for the lifting on the ban on recruitment, even as he demanded immediate implementation of the grade pay.
Shirodkar said the municipalities have not been quick enough in settling harness cases when employees working on garbage duty dies due to TB and other diseases due to the occupational hazards.
