Members of Erode District Local Body Workers’ Association, affiliated to AITUC, have urged the Sathyamangalam municipality to regularise the jobs of contract workers and also provide time-scale pay for them .
Association district president S. Chinnasamy, Sathyamangalam branch president R. Stalin Sivakumar and other functionaries have submitted a petition to the Municipal Commissioner recently.
The petition said that 200 workers are involved in various works in the sanitation department of which only 69 are permanent employees while other workers are contract workers. Even the minimum wages fixed by the State government and the District Collector were not provided to them as they were paid a daily wage of ₹450. Hence, the jobs of contract workers who have worked for 480 days should be regularised and timescale pay should be given, the petition said.
The petition said that the government had fixed a minimum daily wage of ₹592 while the monthly minimum wage is ₹10,000 plus dearness allowance of ₹5,401. Hence, they should be given ₹15,401 as monthly wages from April 1, 2022, the petition said. Their other demands include monthly pay slips and annual Provident Fund statements to workers, providing Employee State Insurance (ESI) identity cards, providing an incentive of ₹15,000 to all workers who worked during COVID-19 pandemic, providing safety gadgets to workers and maintaining the push carts properly.
