PANJIM: The River Navigation Department (RND) Employees Union has announced a day-long strike on April 13, at all ferry points around the state, since its says the demands of the flotilla staff have not be fulfilled despite written assurances. The government has gone on the offensive in the wake of the strike threat and declared the RND as an essential service under the Essential Services Maintenance Act, and prohibited strikes.
Goa Medical College peons and sweepers are also contemplating to strike work, as several rounds of talks with the hospital management have proved fruitless. After a meeting with employees, the Goa Government Employees Association said that it will immediately write to the GMC dean, giving him 15 days to solve the pending issues of attendants, sweepers and other Group D employees and in case this is not done it will give a strike notice of 21 days and go on strike after following due process of law.
The committee of India Navigation Employees Union, affiliated to the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) said its initial plan was to organize the strike on April 9, but it was postponed to April 13, due to Class X board exams. “Since the students are answering their Class X exams, the union decided to postpone the strike to avoid any sort of inconvenience to our young school going children and their parents,” Shridhar Phadte, union general secretary said.
The reasons for the strike include lack of adequate manpower; anomalies in pay fixation of sailors, coxswains, machinists and ticket collectors; sudden changes in leave sanctioning rules of staff and claims of selective harassment and victimization of unionized flotilla staff.
Later Wednesday, the government of Goa declared the service rendered by the RND as an essential service under Sub-section (1) of Section 3 of the Goa Essential Services Maintenance Act, 1988 (GESMA) prohibiting “strikes in all the units/sections of the River Navigation Department, with immediate effect.”
Christopher Fonseca, general secretary of AITUC supported the union adding that the government was not looking to sort issues of the workers.
“The union has constantly been fighting for increase in minimum wages. From the looks of the situation, the government isn’t bothered about the labourers. Labour advisory boards that should be meeting every month, actually meet once in years. This is a dangerous trend and only shows that the government is against the workers,” he concluded.
AITUC has planned a massive dharna on April 21 outside Sharmshakti Bhavan, Patto, to highlight the issues of labourers. Plans for May Day are also underway with a possible rally in Bicholim to highlight issues of mining, livelihood and raise voices against anti-labour practices including employment of contract labour and voluntary retirement schemes.
Meanwhile, a meeting of patient attendants, sweepers and other Group ‘D’ employees of the Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim on Tuesday discussed various issues which the authorities have failed to settle despite several rounds of talks.
John Nazareth, general secretary of Goa Government Employees’ Association (GGEA) said the that a GGEA delegation comprising president M L Shetkar and himself met Sunanda Amonkar, medical superintendent in January and discussed issues like discontinuing the existing pattern of deploying the employees for three-consecutive-night shifts, providing attendance registers in respective wards instead of keeping it with the security officer, issue of work allocation orders specifying the nature of duties which are required to be performed by the attendants and sweepers. Nazareth said that they had also had a meeting with the Director (administration) T A Sawant demanding confirmation orders for the group D employees who have completed more than two years in service, release of MACPS orders etc. According to him the response of both the officers was quite positive and GGEA was hopeful that an immediate solution was in sight.
Employee representatives recounted how they are made to perform unrelated tasks and the harassment meted out to them at the hands of their higher officers. They also agreed to obtain ballot of all the attendants, sweepers and other group D employees to go on strike.
