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TSRTC stops employees from resuming duties after they end 52-day strike
The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) made it clear that since the strike was illegal, the employees could not be allowed to join duty at their ‘whims and fancy’.
Tension ran high and chaos and confusion reigned across several bus depots in Telangana on Tuesday as the management of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), backed by the police, refused to allow its employees to resume work a day after they ended their 52-day-long strike.
Police detained hundreds of employees preventing them from joining duty. All those detained were taken into preventive custody. Even commuters had to show identity proof to gain entry into the depots, making life difficult in Hyderabad and elsewhere across the state.
However, the state government’s decision to continue to run the service with drivers hired on contract during the strike ran aground when a woman techie was crushed under the wheels of a TSRTC bus allegedly driven by an inexperienced driver.
The woman software engineer, Sohini Saxena (24), working with Tata Consultancy Services in Mumbai, was proceeding in a two-wheeler to the local office of her company when the bus fatally knocked her down at the posh Banjara Hills area in Hyderabad. The woman died on the spot, triggering mob fury as angry passersby and others stopped the bus and thrashed the driver. The irate crowd also pelted stones, damaging the windshields of the bus.
Police had a tough time rescuing the driver as a large number of people blocked their way.
The employees had come to rejoin duty from 6 am onwards after the TSRTC Joint-Action Committee (JAC) of four Trade Unions on Monday called off the 52-day-long strike and asked the 48,000 workers to resume work. The JAC had made it clear that they would continue to protest, even while working.
However, the TSRTC management was determined not to allow them to resume their duties. TSRTC Managing Director Sunil Sharma (in-charge) made it clear that since the strike was illegal, the employees could not be allowed to join duty at their ‘whims and fancy’.
“The RTC employees and workers have abstained from duty on their own and were on an illegal strike. As per the directives given by the High Court, Labour Commissioner will take a suitable decision on the RTC workers strike,” Sharma said in a statement late Monday night. Till then, the workers could not be taken back, he added.
He also questioned as to how the employees could work and continue their protest. Police protection was necessary to avoid protests and violence at the depots, he explained.
Many employees who were either turned away or taken into custody termed it as an ‘atrocity witnessed never before’.
The 52-day strike which was launched on October 5, was to press for the charter of 26 demands which included merger of the TSRTC with the government as in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government of K Chandrashekhar Rao refused to yield to the demands despite the High Court advising to resolve the impasse amicably. Later the Court had left the matter to be decided by the Labour Commissioner.
Chief Minister Rao is scheduled to hold a cabinet meeting on Thursday on the TSRTC issue.
