Mangaluru: As demanded minimum pay of Rs.26,000 per month was not accepted by the Union Government, employees affiliated to the Southern Railway Mazdoor Union held a protest by holding red flag and raising slogans to fulfill the demands. The protests were held on Thursday in all the railway stations in the Southern Railway.
Since the central government failed to accept their demands, as planned, from July 11 6 am onwards the employees will stop their work and go on indefinite strike. The central government has failed to accept our demand for minimum pay of Rs.26,000/- from the present pay of Rs.18,000/- and has only offered to pay a meager increment. The union has rejected the hike.
Announcing this, the All Indian joint protest committee, Southern states convener and Southern Railway Mazdoor Union, General Secretary and working president of All India Railway Employees Federation, N.Kanniah has given a call through a circular of the union stating that though the government has accepted their demand to re-examine and look into rejection of new pension plan and also re-examine 52 allowances it rejected as recommended by 7th Pay Commission, it has promised to set up a committee and submit a new acceptable proposal within four months.
But Kannaiah, said since the demand to increase the minimum pay from Rs.18,000/- was not accepted by the central government, it had caused great discontentment among not only the railway employees but also among other central government employees. It has also triggered anger among the employees. If the government does not accept our demands immediately and come forward to announce a minimum pay of Rs.26,000 as announced earlier nearly 40 lakh employees from the railways and also from other central government departments would join the indefinite protest to being on July 11.
Unnikrishnan, Assistant General Secretary, SRMU, Palghat and J.Ananda, Secretary of Mangalore SRMU and Division President addressed the employees.
