Tamil Nadu transport workers unions, including Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), Labour Progressive Federation (LPF), temporarily called off their eight-day long strike on Thursday night after the intervention from the Madras High Court. Through an interim order, the court appointed its former judge E. Padmanabhan as an arbitrator to resolve the dispute between the state government and Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) workers over the wage revision.
The decision to temporarily withdraw the stir was taken in the interest of the people ahead of the Pongal festival which falls on January 14, said A. Soundararajan, CITU state president, while addressing the reporters in Chennai.
As many as 17 trade unions had gone on an indefinite strike since January 4 evening as the talks on the 13th wage agreement failed. Though the unions were demanding an increase in wages by 2.57 times, they have agreed to settle down on the rate proposed by the government, as a temporary relief.
"We are ready to accept wage revision as per 2.44 multiplication factor, as proposed by the government, as a temporary relief," Soundararajan said.
Sounderarajan also demanded that the arbitrator should decide on the wage revision issue within a month.
