Sugar factory workers threaten indefinite strike from February 15
Indian Express: About two lakh sugar factory workers from 188 sugar industries across the state have decided to hold a statewide one-day token strike on February 5 and indefinite strike from February 15 even as their demands on wage increase, bonus and implementing minimum wages for contract labourers remain unfulfilled. The decision was taken at a state-level meeting held at S M Joshi Foundation Hall in the city on Wednesday.
“After we undertook morchas at district collectorates in the state last week, we have decided to hold a token strike on February 5. If the government fails to react to any of these, we shall go ahead with the indefinite strike,” said Kishore Pawar, president, Maharashtra State Federation of Sugar Factory Workers. Pawar said that lakhs of rupees in dues of sugar industry workers are pending. “It is not that the government does not have money to pay. The money simply does not reach the workers,” he said.
Around 800 sugar industry workers had held a morcha from Council Hall to Collector office last week to put forth their demands. “It has been more than a decade that our wages were revised. Currently, a sugar industry worker draws salary of Rs 7,500 to Rs 11,000 a month. Our demand is to increase this wage structure by at least 40 percent,” said Shivaji Kale, vice president of Pune District coordination Committee of sugar industry workers, one of the participants of the strike. According to akle, the limit of previous wage structure expired on March 31, 2009. “Our demand is an interim raise of Rs 2, 000 per worker per month,” he said.
Concerned by the pitiful wages of contract labourers in sugar industry, one of the demands of the workers’ committee is that such workers be paid minimum wages by the government.
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