THE DTC Workers Unity Centre (affiliated to AICCTU) organised a protest on 21 May 2019 in front of the Delhi Transport Corporation Headquarters at IP Estate, Delhi and submitted a memorandum to the DTC management.
DTC contract workers have been facing a lot of problems for long now owing to the wrong policies of the management and the government. The management is constantly flouting labour laws and illegally cutting Rs 2000-5000 from contract workers’ wages. Contract workers who report at the right time for duty at the DTC depot are being sent back home. The workers are forced to bear the brunt of the wrong policies of the government and non-purchase of new buses. The Union has on numerous earlier occasions also raised the demands of the workers regarding wage cuts and equal pay for equal work.
Addressing the workers at the protest, Union General Secretary Rajesh Chopra said that the management and the government want to snatch away the rights of the workers; the DTC management is bent on promoting private interests. The Union is not being called for talks even once, whereas the Labour Department has issued written orders for holding talks. The contract workers who have been removed from work have not yet been reinstated.
Acting President of the Union Prempal Singh said that the management had not paid heed to their demands in the past, which is why they had to agitate.
DTC has been the centre of workers’ protests and agitations for the past several months, but the DTC management and the Delhi government are not ready to hold talks with the Union on the workers’ demands. At the conclusion of the protest, senior Union leader Rajinder Singh Gehlot said that recently the Khattar government in Haryana was forced to take back its Kilometre Scheme after protests by Haryana Roadways workers. Similarly, DTC workers’ protests will decide the shape of public transport in Delhi in the coming days.
