Greater Noida warns striking sanitation workers of holding salary

The authority, in a statement on Friday, also said that it has directed contractors to hire new workers to replace the agitating ones

The Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) has said that it will hold the salaries of striking sanitation workers till they end the demonstration demanding timely release of salaries.

Sanitation workers have been on a strike since November 6. (HT PHOTO)

The authority, in a statement released on Friday, also said that it has directed contractors to hire new workers to replace the agitating ones.

Members of workers’ union said that they will not be “threatened” by GNIDA’s moves, and will continue to stage the demonstration and boycott work until their demands are considered.

However, the authority maintained that it has addressed multiple demands of the workers, including releasing outstanding salaries.

“Many demands have already been addressed and yet, the work of cleanliness is not resumed in the city as the workers are continuing with their strike. Action will be taken if the current situation continues”, GNIDA said in the statement after a meeting with the workers’ union on Friday. It added that a committee meeting would soon take place to address the remaining demands.

The claim was rubbished by the workers’ association, which said that the meeting failed to arrive at a decision.

District president, Sanyukt Morcha Safai Karamchari, Ranbeer Janghara said, “A meeting was held at the authority office on Friday where no concrete decision was taken. Instead, we were constantly told that they need a week’s time and a decision will be taken. We are now being threatened of being fired from the job, holding our salaries and police action instead of addressing the issue so that work can be resumed on ground”.

He added, “We too do not want the city to be strewn with garbage but we can’t keep cleaning if we do not get a better pay for the work”.

Sanitation workers have been alleging that salaries of the months of May and June of around 350 of them had not been released till now, while salary of August and September has also been put on hold for around 140 sanitation workers.

The workers had raised demands that the outstanding salary be released ahead of the festivities along with a Diwali bonus, but that too did not happen, they have alleged.

The authority has claimed that the Diwali bonus has already been paid.

Currently, there are around 1,400 contractual sanitation workers hired by six contractors who work in parts of the city. However, since the strike was called by them on November 6, around 800 of them have been staging protests in Jaitpur area near the authority’s office.

The workers’ longstanding demands include pay parity with authority staff, implementation of salary hike of fourth grade employees, and a change in terms of ex gratia for employees.

The strike has derailed the cleaning services across the city, including Sectors Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma. While GNIDA had earlier stated that a few daily wagers are being hired to take up cleaning/sanitation-related works, residents have been complaining about heaps of garbage strewn on roads, public places, and lack of door-to-door garbage collection service etc. in parts of the city.