CHENNAI: Sanitation workers protest against privatisation, lament job loss

Chennai: Following the privatisation of solid waste management (SWM) in Royapuram and Thiruvika Nagar areas by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) from August 1, hundreds of sanitation workers staged a protest outside Ripon Building on Friday. The protest began after GCC officials informed employees associated with the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) on Thursday night to stop work. Similarly, morning shift workers who had come to sign up at their ward offices on Friday were sent home. Employees from the Left Trade Congress Union (LTUC) and Uzhaippur Urimai Iyakkam (UUI) unions allege that the GCC is reneging on its promises of permanent employment and instead forcing them to work under private contracts. “The municipal corporation is responsible for giving us permanent jobs, but now they are forcing us to work with a private contractor at 30% less wages. The officials pressured us to work with the private contractor on Monday morning,” said Sakthivel, an NULM worker from ward 61. The protest began outside Ripon Building at 7:30 am on Friday, with employees vowing to continue working day and night. Sharing their woes, a woman employee said, “I am the sole breadwinner of my family. I joined the job 10 years ago at Rs 8,000. Till last month, I was earning Rs 23,000. Now I have to find another job to support my family.” The issue was earlier raised in the monthly council meeting of the GCC on Wednesday, to which Deputy Mayor M. Magesh Kumar had responded that the employees would be transferred to other departments of the corporation. However, this assurance did not reach the NULM employees. Meanwhile, a member of the Madras Red Flag Union staged a sit-in at Ripon Building. Explaining the situation, P. Srinivasalu, general secretary of the union, said: “The city corporation had assured that sanitation workers would be deployed in other departments, but the NULM employees have effectively been thrown out of jobs. They are now faced with either going to a private contractor or finding a new job altogether.”