Tamil Nadu Govt Employees Launch Indefinite Strike

Tamil Nadu Govt Employees Launch Indefinite Strike – The employees attached to the association have called for a strike pressing for a 20 point demand including scrapping the new pension system.

With an indefinite strike called by the Tamil Nadu Government Employees Association (TNGEA) kick started on Wednesday, members affiliated to the association staged a demonstration at Chepauk here.

More than three lakh state government employees in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday launched an indefinite strike to press for their various demands. The strike affected functioning of many departments.

The employees attached to the association have called for a strike pressing for a 20 point demand including scrapping the new pension system for the staff, who joined services after the year 2003.

Their demands ranged from filling vacancies and fixing minimum wages for noon meal scheme workers to reinstating 12,000 panchayat union workers and cancelling the new pension rules as said above.

“There is a big problem with the pension scheme. More than Rs 10,000 crore has been collected from four lakh government employees. But government has to invest 10% of the employee’s pension and the total money will be invested in stock market. But the government has not done anything and we warned the government about going on strike on this issue alone,” Balasubramanian said. The employees also want the pending amount to be transferred to the general provident fund.

According to K Raghuraman president of TNGEA, Chepauk, parity on pay scale between the Central and State Government Employees was another key demand. Steps should be taken for filling up the vacancies, he added.

Claiming that over 40 per cent of the State Government Employees have not reported for duty in view of the strike at Chennai on Wednesday morning,  he said that the numbers would increase from tomorrow.

R. Jothi Sankar, district president of Tamil Nadu Revenue Officers Association (TNROA) told that 90 per cent of employees of all departments participated in the strike in Tiruvannamalai district. Court staff and employees of commercial taxes department too participated. All department pensioners association staged a demonstration in Tiruvannamalai to express solidarity with the striking staff.Demands.

“A meeting was held in Chennai on Tuesday evening. Finance minister O Panneerselvam, three other ministers and finance secretary K Shanmugam represented the government at the meeting. We explained our demands to them. But they told us that chief minister J Jayalalithaa would take a decision,” Government Employees Association chief R Balasubramanian said.

“The strike will continue till the government comes out with a decision on pension and our other demands. In the coming days, more and more employees from the departments will take part in the strike,” he said.

Source: Indian Express