Postal staff boycott work, demand seveneth pay commission

COIMBATORE: About 1,000 employees of the postal department in the district boycotted work on Tuesday in protest against the Centre for not implementing the seventh pay commission for extra departmental employees, who work in rural areas. Known as gramin dak sevaks (GDS), there are about 300 such employees in Coimbatore and 400 in Pollachi divisions.
Gramin dak sevaks or delivery agents are not direct employees of the department.They act as delivery agents recruited to deliver posts in rural post offices. They are also posted in positions such as branch post masters in rural post offices.
The seventh pay commission was implemented for postal department’s employees from 2016. However, it was not implemented for gramin dak sevaks.
Kamalesh Chandra committee, which was constituted to look into the wages for gramin dak sevaks, had submitted its report to the Centre in 2017. “But the pay commission has not yet been implemented for them,” vice-president of the postmen’s wing of the National Federation of Postal Employees K Mahendran said.
Employees of the postal department said they participated in the boycott in solidarity with the gramin dak sevaks. Currently, GDSs are paid from Rs 6,000 to Rs 10,000. “If the seventh pay commission is implemented, their pay would rise to Rs 10,000 to Rs 14,000, along with benefits like allowance for their children’s education,” said secretary of the clerical wing of National Federation of Postal Employees Ebenezer Gandhi.
“Though we staged several demonstrations seeking implementation of the seventh pay commission, the Centre has not heeded to our demands. So we resorted to the boycott on Tuesday,” said Gandhi, adding that about 85% of the federation’s members had not showed up for work.
Secretary of the Coimbatore chapter of the All India gramin dak Sevak Union A Jeeva said they would boycott work indefinitely if the pay commission is not implemented. “About 200 gramin dak sevaks form Coimbatore participated in the strike,” he said.