RTC union justifies call for strike in Ongole

Ongole: APSRTC Employees Union state general secretary Palisetty Damodara Rao, Prakasam regional secretary Bezawada Ravi, Nellore zonal president Vaka Ramesh and other leaders participated in the regional meeting of the union in Ongole on Friday and announced that they were going to strike demanding that the government pay salaries to the RTC employees equally with the government employees. 

They announced that the union members do not go back from the strike even if the government threatens them with the essential services maintenance act (ESMA). 

The EU leaders said that they demanded that the government give fitment of about 50 percent after considering the corporation’s financial conditions. But the management agreed to pay only 15 percent. 

In order to cover the difference in salary with other government employees, they said that they served strike notice with 91 demands including regularization of contract workers, dropping the plans of removing employees and region to region transfers. 

They said that they agreed for the meeting on January 18 as the VC&MD asked time to discuss the issue with Chief Minister.