In one of the biggest layoffs in the history of the country, the Telangana government on Sunday dismissed all of the nearly 50,000 striking employees of the Telangana State Road Transportation Corporation (TSRTC).
The agitating employees, affiliated to around ten trade unions, boycotted work over the weekend after putting forward a list of 26 demands to the state government. The major demand of the employees was to merge the corporation with the state government. Other demands include revising a salary hike that had been pending for two years, filling up vacancies, offering childcare holidays for women employees, clearing dues to the corporation owed by the government, purchasing new buses and allowing the corporation to start parcel services.
As the strike entered the third day, the state government acted on its prior warning that employees should join work by 6pm on Saturday or lose their jobs. The state government had set the deadline in view of the ongoing festive season. With the employees not relenting and continuing with their strike, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) took the decision of dismissing all the employees who kept away from work.
In a statement on Sunday evening, KCR condemned the strike, calling it "illegal, irresponsible and based on wrong thinking." He said that problems had been surrounding the affairs of the RTC for the last 40 years and that there was a need for a permanent solution, pointing out that states ilke Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh and Manipur have no RTCs. "People are angry over the RTC staff who went on strike. There is wide spread opposition express in social media. People were put to lots of hardships due to the strike," the CM said.
Earlier, talks between trade union leaders and a high-level committee consisting of IAS officers representing the government had failed. On Sunday evening, the chief minister made it clear that TSRTC will not be merged with the government. It is also learnt that he is no mood to engage with union leaders or accept any of their demands.
By dealing with striking employees with an iron hand, KCR seems to have repeated what former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa had done in 2003. In a historic move, she dismissed more than one lakh employees who were on strike. In the ensuing elections in 2004, her party lost all 39 MP seats.
The chief minister, who held a meeting with transport minister P. Ajay and senior officials of the transport department is keen on hiring new people to replace the dismissed employees. At the meeting, he said that the RTC was offering from debts to the tune of around Rs 5,000 Crores and he wanted to herald a new chapter to bring it into profits.
As of today, the RTC only has 1,200 employees. As per the CM’s instructions, more than 2,000 buses will be taken on hire so that people are not to inconvenience. Moving forward, the CM wants half of RTC’s fleet to be private buses as a step towards pulling RTC out of losses. The CM has also ordered the officials to take necessary action for the smooth functioning of the corporation in 15 days. In addition, any new recruits will have to give an undertaking that they will not join any trade union.
According to sources in the government, in the coming days, RTC might be trifurcated as per regions and merged into civic bodies. The government is also studying other models. The RTC fleet consists of around 10,000 buses out of which around 2,000 are not owned by RTC.
Meanwhile, the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of RTC employees are meeting today to chalk out their future plan. The union have made it clear that they will continue to strike until their demands are met. Both the BJP and Congress parties have criticised the CM's move and have thrown their weight behind the striking employees.
