DTC Contract Workers Warn Kejriwal Government
DTC Workers Unity Centre campaigned from 2-10 February among DTC workers on problems facing the workers and their betrayal by the Kejriwal government. The campaign ended on 10 February with a warning to the DTC management and the Delhi government. During the campaign posters were put up at all DTC depots and about 24 gate meetings were organized.
The DTC Workers Unity Centre said that the Kejriwal government has taken no steps to fulfill its electoral promises such as regularizing al contract workers, and neither is it paying any heed to other demands of the workers. Angered by this the workers gave vent to their anger by holding the "shav yatra" (final journey) of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Clearly the Delhi CM is betraying the DTC workers. Workers and employees in Delhi had pinned high hopes on the AAP manifesto for the 2015 Delhi Assembly election. The manifesto promised that contract workers would be regularized, but the Kejriwal has turned away completely from its promise. Moreover, the contract workers have to work on a far lower salary than that of regular workers which is illegal. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has not fulfilled any of the promises he had made in his addresses to DTC workers. It should be noted that the DTC Chief is also the Transport Minister Kailash Gehlot, but he is not willing even to talk to the workers on these issues.
The labour leaders have said that when the Delhi government is not willing to listen to the workers of Delhi, why is the Chief Minister going to other States just before the election and making false promises to the people in those States? Clearly his promises will prove to be hollow and he will betray those people too in the same way that he has betrayed the workers of Delhi.
DTC Workers Unity Centre General Secretary Rajesh says that DTC is being rapidly pushed towards ruination. It is our country's great misfortune that the Central and State governments are encouraging privatization-contractualization policies. The Modi government is selling all public undertakings from Air India to Indian Railways, and now the Delhi government wants to gradually finish DTC and hand public transport to private hands. The Central government is bent on implementing the anti-worker labour code, and the Delhi CM is seen to be standing in favour of this anti-worker labour code. Instead of tackling inflation, unemployment and inequality across the country, all government-public sector jobs are being given on contract. DTC is able to run its buses only on the strength of the contract workers but they are not even given equal pay for equal work.
The buses purchased at the time of the Commonwealth Games are now quite ramshackle, but the government is not buying new buses for DTC. The DTC workshop has been shut down and the depots are being given over to private hands. As such DTC cannot last long, and the present government will be responsible for its demise.
AICCTU Delhi President Santosh Rai says that even after such a long campaign, neither the management nor the State government has so much as called the Union for talks. In the past also DTC workers have fought long and successful battles. If the DTC management and Delhi government do not change their adamant attitude, we will definitely expose the truth of this anti-worker government. On earlier occasions DTC workers have been forced to campaign against Congress governments; this time we will be forced to go to Punjab to campaign against AAP. We have informed the management and the Chief Minister about this. He also said, we are trying to talk to the DTC management and Delhi government in this regard but there has been no response from them so far.
