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Ludhiana: Outsourced PSPCL workers to go on indefinite strike
Union leaders said the government has failed to act on its repeated assurances regarding job regularisation, implementation of minimum living wages, and social security benefits for accident victims
Outsourced staff of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), primarily employed as complaint handling bikes (CHB) and complaint handling wagons (CHW), have once again announced an indefinite strike starting October 16 over pending job regularisation demands. Reportedly, the decision comes merely a week after the workers, under the banner of the Powercom and Transco Contractual Workers Union, held a statewide agitation on September 28.
Notably, these employees are responsible for attending to residents’ electricity complaints registered through the state helpline number 1912.
Announcing the strike, during a meeting with the principal secretary (power) and PSPCL management, union leaders said the government has failed to act on its repeated assurances regarding job regularisation, implementation of minimum living wages, and social security benefits for accident victims.
Balihar Singh, state president of the union said that although the agenda for absorbing outsourced workers into the department has already been approved by the PSPCL Board of Directors and forwarded to the Punjab government, the issue continues to face bureaucratic delays.
“The principal secretary has assured us that the process of bringing outsourced employees directly under the department will begin soon and that another meeting will be held with the finance and power ministers. However, despite these assurances, the authorities are resorting to a delaying approach, prompting us to go on a recurring strike,” he said.
“Our workers have been serving on meagre wages without job security for years. If the matter is not resolved by October 15, we will be left with no option but to go on an indefinite strike from the next day,” the union stated in its protest notice submitted to the principal secretary, Singh added.
Additionally, the union has also demanded the scrapping of the state’s privatisation policy in the power sector, the provision of permanent jobs and pension benefits for workers injured or killed during duty and equal pay for equal work for all outsourced employees.
