Major victory for contractual workers! Maharashtra CM directs BMC officials on enabling permanent status for 2700 workers

NewsBharati    20-Jun-2018
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Mumbai, June 20: Maharashtra has always revealed a bright and welcoming side pertaining to various initiatives in the state. In the latest move, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials to grant permanent status to the 2700 contractual sanitation workers in the city.

This decision is being hailed as a victory for the workers’ union in its 11-year-long court battle with the BMC. The Supreme Court had in 2017 ordered BMC to make these contractual staffers in its conservancy department permanent employees. The workers will have to submit an undertaking about the spelling error, following which they will be given jobs. The move will benefit 1,400 workers.

 

As per the Industrial Disputes Act, if a worker has the right to demand a permanent position if he or she has worked continuously for 240 days. Contractors often hire workers only for six months, and then the BMC awards the work to another contractor. Though the workers remain more or less the same under a new contractor, this means a laborer works with one contractor for less than 240 days and cannot claim a permanent slot.

The conservancy workers who were terminated by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) following spelling errors in their names are now taken under the permanent worker's slot. The Kachra Vahtuk Shramik Sangh has been representing 2,700 conservancy workers for almost a decade, demanding they be taken on BMC’s payroll. The civic body will now give priority to those taken on board and terminated immediately.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis recently visited Canada and US inking many economic pacts and various other agreements.