Karnataka - Hubli-Dharwad   

KSRTC union rejects 6 per cent pay hike

HUBLI: The KSRTC Staff and Workers’ Federation, the sole recognised trade union in the State road transport corporation, has rejected the proposed six per cent hike in the salaries of the employees. It says the hike is not in line with the hike recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission. The federation will stage a “Bangalore Chalo” on October 15 to press for its demands, said vice-president of the federation V. Joseph and joint secretary S. Nagaraju here on Wednesday.

They said the federation had already submitted its charter of demands in December last year and till date there had been no response from the management of the corporation.

Mr. Nagaraju said in spite of the tall claims made by the management there was gross violation of various labour laws and the workers, especially those taken as trainees, were being exploited.

He said despite the minimum wages announced by the State Government, the newly recruited workers were not being paid accordingly. Around 40,000 workers were working for less than minimum wages, he said. “This is total violation of the Minimum Wagers Act, 1948,” he said. Mr. Nagaraju said although BMTC’s profit had grown manifold, the workers were still being paid bonus/exgratia at the rate of 8.33 per cent, even though they were entitled to get it at the rate of 20 per cent. Referring to the recent hike in bus fares, he said the justification that it was meant to compensate for the burden of paying the Dearness Allowance to workers and the wage enhancement was “misleading and mischievous”.

He said in spite of two wage revisions, the workers’ welfare expenses of the corporation had come down by 0.47 per cent, mainly due to the decline in the number of workers. “Now the corporation is taking workers as trainees and giving them less salary and overburdening them with work,” he said.

He said the federation was against any move for disinvestment in BMTC .

Mr. Joseph said apart from the charter of demands, the federation wanted the management to pay salary regularly to the employees; hold a referendum to recognise the trade unions; and give minimum wages to trainees.

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