Maharastra state employees to strike from tomorrow

Nearly 22 lakh state government staff including secondary school teachers, junior college teachers, non-teaching staff will go on indefinite strike from tomorrow demanding the implementation of 6th Pay Commission.Already the University and college teachers are on indefinite 'cease work' strike from July 14 asking for the implementation of 6th Pay Commission and solution for other demands in writing.The state government employees and secondary school and junior college teachers will be on strike under the banner of Maharashtriya Rajya Sarkari Madhyavarghi Sangatna, the convenor R G Karnik said.The Coordination committee of teachers organisations, Bombay (CCTOB) said that the government attacked the teachers and government employees by its GR of May 13,2009."Although new scales have been announced, all of us stand to lose heavily because HRA (house rent allowance), CLA and transport allowance will now be calculated on the basis of old scales and each teacher/staff will be losing upto tens of thousands of rupees on this account every year," CCTOB said.The two main demands of the striking staff are--all kinds of allowances which are linked to central 6th Pay Commission scales and other benefits should be extended to state government employees and all primary, secondary and junior college teachers should get the same scales as are prescribed for teachers in central institutions without any cut."This is our demand for not implementing Hakim Committee recommendations fully,"the convenor said.In February this year, the state government announced that it would implement the recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission with effect from 2006 and with that decision the state will face an additional burden of Rs 8091 crore every year and it has to give Rs 16,370 crore as the arrears in next five years, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan had said.However, he noted that the decision on HRA, Transport allowance will be taken later.

Source : Express Buzz.