Date:23/08/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/08/23/stories/2006082316370600.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Civil Supplies employees to get strike-period salary

Special Correspondent

AIADMK government refused to pay them for 18 days

CHENNAI: Civil Supplies Corporation employees, who were denied salary for the 18 days they struck work to protest against lowering of bonus by the previous AIADMK government, will be compensated, Food Minister A.V. Velu informed the Assembly on Wednesday.

In a suo motu statement, he said the 4000-odd employees who struck work for 17 days in 2001 and for a day in 2002, would be paid salary for the period.

Between 1997 and 2000, the then DMK government had given a bonus of 20 per cent to the staff of the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation.

The AIADMK government that took charge in 2001 slashed it to 8.33 per cent.

Mr.Velu said it had resulted in the bonus amount coming down from Rs.6,000 to Rs.2,500.

Members of the Association for the Welfare of the TNCSC Staff had appealed to the government to consider the strike period as working days and the government had taken a favourable decision, he added.