The Bihar State Local Corporation Workers' Mahasangh affiliated to AICCTU and Bihar Local Bodies Joint Workers Sangharsh Morcha organized a statewide indefinite strike since 27 August 2022. The demands raised from the strike are: regularize daily/contract workers; equal pay for equal work; end contract system; job on compassionate grounds for dependents of workers who die on duty; issue ID cards; EPF/ESI benefits; retirement benefits, pension, ACP for regular workers on the lines of government employees; review 7th Pay Commission; pay arrears from revision of 5th and 6th Pay Commission; pay PF amount cut from salary into workers' accounts.
Speaking for AICCTU standing firmly with the workers' demands, State Joint Secretary Mukesh Mukt held the state government responsible for the strike. He said that daily/contract sanitation and water supply workers have been working for as long as 15 years in urban corporations. According to the rules they should have been regularized after 240 days but the government has not only failed to regularize them but also ended their service and pushed them into 'outsourcing'. As a result this section of workers is very angry. These are the workers who keep the city free from hellish dirt and supply water to the people. Even during Covid times they risked their lives to perform this service for citizens. Many workers even lost their lives. They have been organizing struggles for years but the government did not heed them.
Mukesh Mukt said that a joint front of many urban corporation trade unions was formed at the initiative of the Mahasangh and movements were organized in several phases, but still the government remained silent. On 13 August a massive protest was held in Patna in front of the Chief Minister but still there was no response from the government and no bilateral talks were called, forcing the workers to go on an indefinite strike from 27 August.
Comrade Mukt said that the corporation workers' strike can be witnessed across the state including Bhagalpur. The state government is responsible for the implications of the strike which is the workers’ right. AICCTU demands that bilateral talks should be held without delay and the strike should be ended by fulfilling the workers' demands.
