Will support & protest for 70 employees irrespective of ESMA if UTC fails to reconsider their forced retirement: UREU
Tuesday, 04 October 2022 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Claiming that the State government is using the imposition of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) against employees of Uttarakhand Transport Corporation (UTC) to harass them, the Uttarakhand Roadways Employees Union (UREU) said that it will be bound to go against the rules to protest in support of the employees who were recently served noticed by the administration.
The UTC has issued notices of forced retirement to 70 drivers and conductors who are allegedly unfit to carry out the jobs they were initially appointed for and are currently doing other works and as per the officials, they will be considered retired after 90 days as per the notice. The president of the union Ashok Chaudhary said that the corporation has issued the notices against the rules. He said, “The corporation cannot remove an employee from his job if he becomes unfit due to health issues over a period of time.
All 70 employees who were issued notice are unable to carry out their duties as conductors and drivers and not due to any irregularities in the work they are currently doing in the corporation as said by the officials.” He said that many of these employees even work lower-level jobs under Roadways because of health issues. All these 70 employees have required medical reports to prove their claim of being unable to work as conductors and drivers but the UTC is still targeting them, said Chaudhary. He said, “There are about 500 employees under the corporation who are not working as per the posts they were initially hired for. Why is no action being taken against them? We talked to the senior officials about their decision and they said that UTC is running at a loss due to which they are removing such employees which is against the rules.” He added that the government had invoked ESMA last month which prohibits the employees from going on strike till March 5, 2023 and now they are taking advantage to harass the employees by removing them from their jobs. “We have filed a case against ESMA invoked by UTC in court and the hearing is in a few weeks. We hope that the government will reconsider this decision of forced retirement or else, we would have to stand in support of our fellow workers whether or not ESMA remains in effect. The union will not let the UTC harass employees and snatch their livelihood,” said Chaudhary.
