New Delhi, May 9 (PTI) Contractual sanitation and mess workers at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have called off their indefinite strike and returned to work after “oral assurance” by the Dean of Student welfare’s (DSW) office that their salary will be credited in the next seven days.
The All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), which has supported the contractual workers’ strike, said in a statement that there has been no written assurance by the administration and the union will keep a vigilant watch on any attempt to “violate the promises”.
“The sanitation workers have ended their strike and have resumed work after the assurance by the administration that their salary will be credited in next 7 days,” AICCTU National Vice President Sucheta De said, adding that the workers will again start protesting if demands not met.
The JNU sanitation and mess workers had started an indefinite strike on May 4, demanding immediate payment of pending wages of three months, ensuring a 26-day work duty per month, reemployment of retrenched workers and ensuring that salaries are credited by the seventh of every month.
“On 7th of May, after Dean of Students issued duty places of workers and oral assurance by DoS office that 26 days work month will be given, the workers decided through a meeting to resume work. The union will keep a vigilant watch on any attempt to violate the promises by the JNU administration,” the AICCTU statement read.
The AICCTU alleged that the JNU administration has also not implemented the Equal Pay for Equal Work order given by the office of the Deputy Central Labour Commissioner in 2018.
“The administration has been sitting over lakhs of rupees of the workers’ legal wages. The recent struggle of JNU workers was against all these violations. The administration did all that it could to suppress the struggle and even tried to suppress the struggle by force,” the statement read.
The JNU on Saturday, however, clarified that it has not removed any workers and has asked the Dean of Students Welfare Sudhir Pratap Singh to submit a detailed report on the matter.
“JNU VC and her administration have not removed any worker. All mess workers are being retained. Dean of Students Welfare has been asked to submit a detailed report,” the JNU tweeted from its official account. PTI VA CK
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Source: The Print
