In Gzb, protesting sanitation staff threaten religious conversion if demands not met

Municipal officials said they are holding talks with the workers and their leaders to end the strike.

Hundreds of contractual sanitation staff of the Ghaziabad municipal corporation, who are on a strike since February 5 (Monday), said on Thursday that they will undergo “religious conversion” if their demands are not met by the civic body and the state government. The workers also took out a protest march to the district headquarters on Thursday to press their demands..

In Gzb, protesting sanitation staff threaten religious conversion if demands not met

The eight demands include regularisation of contractual workers; deployment of 3,600 more workers on an urgent basis; and the corporation taking up the operation of garbage collection vehicles instead of hiring them on contract, among others.

“Hundreds of workers took out a huge rally from the corporation headquarters to the district collectorate. We submitted a memorandum to the district officials. Our workers have also threatened to undergo religious conversion if their demands are not fulfilled. Officials are resorting to pressure tactics and pressuring staff to mark their attendance,” said Rahul Chauhan, district president of the workers’ union, Uttar Pradeshiya Safai Karmchari Sangh.

The municipal officials said they are holding talks with the workers and their leaders to end the strike.

“At the local level, we have consented to their demand for a welfare fund, but the matter of regularising workers needs the sanction of the state government. We checked the attendance across all wards and found that only about 258 workers are absent from work on Thursday. So, the cleaning work in wards has not been affected,” said Vikramaditya Malik, Ghaziabad municipal commissioner.

According to corporation officials, the agency has about 4,500 sanitation workers on its rolls and 2,763 of them are contractual employees.