Goa has always had a contentious relationship with its workforce, forcing them to take to the streets again and again. From electricity employees to teachers, all have walked, sat, slept on the roads in Panjim and elsewhere to get demands met. And while a small percentage of these movements have been political with the leadership clearly focusing on political gains, it will be fair to conclude that the Government’s treatment of its workers has not been that of engagement, transparency and honesty.
The Congress and the BJP have regularly used power to fill up posts in departments on an ad-hoc basis just to secure votes, Most of these recruitments have happened on the eve of elections by violating the model code of conduct. Everyone remembers how before the last assembly elections, young boys recruited to the electricity department spent their days outside the South Goa head office in Margao playing cards and listening to the radio.
The strike called by the Goa Employment and Recruitment Society (GERS) workers is a part of the same pattern of unkept promises and subsequent false assurances. Importantly this force was created by Manohar Parrikar himself to ensure that Goan’s have a body and a platform though which they can serve in government. It was raised as a work force needed to man government installations and buildings. From the time of their inception they were given hopes of a service which would be regular in a form that seemed permanent. There is another argument that their contracts were renewable and not once has the government stopped the renewals of their contracts.
Therefore all through the last decade, there has been this uneasy relationship where GERS workers have hoped for more and this meant regularisation and the government has never said an emphatic no without ever having said an emphatic yes. Politics obviously played its part. Many workers recruited during Manohar Parrikar’s first term as Chief Minister, were left hanging by subsequent Congress governments who saw GERS as a BJP creation. And while they suffered during the Congress regime, the opposition BJP egged them on to protest. Now with the BJP back in power, the assurances without any closure continue.
While the current strike has been called off after a meeting between Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar and a delegation of the agitating contract workers of GERS on Friday afternoon failed to resolve the problem and put an end to the hunger strike undertaken by the workers. It worked on Saturday but there was no joy or happiness. The problem has been stalled not solved. The government has bought time. But governance is not about hedging or bypassing issues. Though very few of the workers are from Panjim, the government doesn’t want to take any decision on the issue lest it affects the Panjim by-polls. But it can’t wish it away. The fancy sounding Human Resource Development Corporation needs to first rationalize the work force, check excess staff and make a plan for right sizing. At the same time, it needs to educate and communicate to contract workers its plan for them and spell it out properly. There is great loss and complication by not communicating and the government will continue to suffer ill will resulting in bad blood by following this path of uncertainly.
The strike may have been called off but resentment against the government is fully on.
