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Civic staff seek written assurance to end stir
On Friday, at least 15,000 pourakarmikas of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) began an indefinite strike at Freedom Park, demanding their jobs be made permanent and better salary to take care of their families.
The pourakarmikas (civic workers) in Bengaluru and other parts of the state have decided to continue their protest, even after chief minister Basavaraj Bommai assured that the state government will regularise services of those working on direct payment, organisers said on Saturday.
Maitreyi Krishnan, a state committee member of the All-India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), one of organisers the protests, said that despite the chief minister’s promise, the minutes of the meeting didn’t detail certain demands made by them and there were no written assurances from Bommai.
On Saturday, Bommai announced that the services of pourakarmikas will be regularised. He also said that pourakarmikas’ jobs will be made permanent within three months, contract drivers of garbage vehicles and helpers will be brought under direct payment, and a committee will be formed to help make their jobs permanent.
“These were the assurances made to us, which we asked to be presented in writing, to which the CM agreed. Unfortunately, in the minutes of the proceedings that have come out, certain essential aspects are missing. Firstly, the three-month time period mentioned earlier to make pourakarmika jobs permanent is missing. Secondly, a complete silence has been maintained on drivers and helpers,” Krishnan.
“This is an unimaginably exploitative system where workers have been working for 25-30 years. Others have made money based on the labour of these pourakarmikas. There are struggles for everything – for toilets, for minimum wages. They were brought under the direct payment system also after a huge struggle. Whatever they have today is because they demanded and agitated for it. It is high time that the government realises that the city runs because of pourakarmikas and gives them their due. At the same time, citizens must realise that we are healthy and without illnesses because of pourakarmikas and come out in their support,” Krishnan added.
On Friday, at least 15,000 pourakarmikas of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) began an indefinite strike at Freedom Park, demanding their jobs be made permanent and better salary to take care of their families. The civic workers are the backbone of every city corporation in Karnataka, especially Bengaluru, which houses over 12 million of the estimated 70 population of the state.
Protests are happening in other parts of the state as well. Smaller, but similar protests are underway in Mysuru, Belagavi, Bidar and a few other districts.
“We have been doing this work for the past 20 years but are still not being made permanent. The salaries they pay are not enough for house rent, to pay our children’s school fees or to survive. We will continue our strike till our jobs are made permanent,” said a pourakarmika, who did not share her name.
While Bengaluru has been spending crores of rupees on the mechanisation of sweepers and other equipment to keep the streets clean, the large army of pourakarmikas do the bulk of the work and are seen sweeping and collecting garbage from the streets and other places manually.
Bengaluru generates around 5,000 tonnes of waste every day, and only a portion of this actually goes to recycling, according to experts. The waste collection, in large localities, is done with a small auto, which transfers it to bigger trucks, which then make their way into segregation units or sometimes, landfills.
The strike comes when Karnataka, particularly Bengaluru, has seen a sharp uptick in Covid-19 infections, adding even more significance to civic workers who keep the city clean.
The garbage crisis, where waste was not collected for days in Bengaluru in 2012, had made global headlines, denting the city’s reputation as a global IT hub.
The pourakarmikas, waste collectors and the entire manual labour ecosystem to keep Bengaluru clean have commenced their strike at Bengaluru’s freedom park, demanding dignified working conditions, including the provision of safety equipment, post-retirement benefits, and permanency of jobs, along with other welfare measures.
The protest is being organised by the Powrakarmikara Sanghatanegala Janti Horata Samiti, of which BBMP Powrakarmikara Sangha is a co-organiser.
On Saturday, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) joined the protest.
“AAP in Delhi and Punjab has encouraged pourakarmikas to participate in the elections and win them. This has given political strength to the sentiments of pourakarmikas. However, in Karnataka, BJP has turned blind to the problems and pains of pourakarmikas. The BJP government is stubborn by not responding to repeated protests of pourakarmika,” Karnataka AAP president Prithvi Reddy said.
