Casual SMC workers threaten strike after unpaid salary

Casual SMC workers threaten strike after unpaid salary

SRINAGAR: Sanitation staffers engaged by Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) on consolidated basis have threatened to go on an indefinite strike over unpaid salary for more than six months.
Employees said they are only receiving meagre remuneration and the Corporation is not able to pay them on time.
“We don’t have money to feed our families and our children are suffering,” they said.
As per the official records, 3500 persons are associated with garbage and sanitation with the Corporation.
“We won’t allow SMC authorities to exploit us. We are getting only 6750 rupees salary per months, and the Corporation is not able to provide us salary on time,” said Ghulam Rasool, a sanitation worker. “Authorities have turned deaf ears to our demands and we have only one option left to go for an indefinite strike.”
“Despite repeated pleas to the authorities, it seems administration is not interested in resolving the issues of sanitation employees,” he said.
Employees said that the authorities used to release their wages on time, but from last seven months, they have not received a single penny from the Corporation.
“We are the backbone of city sanitation, but we are being deprived of every facility as well as wages,” said Abdul Satar, another worker. “There are hundreds of such laborers who are out on streets in every situationacross the city, but nobody seems to be giving any attention to our woes.”
There are more than 25 casual laborers working alone in Lal Chowk Ward of SMC, while there are hundreds of such employees working across Srinagar city-usually pressed into action during such eventualities.
Apart from not being paid the salaries, these employees are also under-paid in and do not fall under any scheme which could have covered their occupational hazards.
While as ward officers of the department told Kashmir Reader that they have approached many times to the higher ups who said they don’t get any sanitation fee due to which we theyare not able to provide salary to the workers.
“Our sanitation workers work in every situation – weather in snow or in harsh winter – still they don’t get the benefits which they deserve.We too are helpless.we cannot do anything,” they said.

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