Staff union defers strike after PCMC chief calls talks

PUNE: The Pimpri Chinchwad Mahanagarpalika Karmachari Mahasangh (employees union federation in the municipal corporation) has deferred its proposed strike that was scheduled to begin from Wednesday. The decision was announced after municipal commissioner Ashish Sharma invited the federation for talks on Friday.

The federation has demanded that PCMC employees should be given preference for the posts of administrative officers, instead of appointing officials on deputation from the state government. The PCMKM on Tuesday gave a 24-hour strike notice to the civic administration on Tuesday.

Baban Zinjurde, president, PCMKM, on Wednesday said, "Municipal commissioner Ashish Sharma has invited us for talks on Friday. As a result, we have deferred the strike that would have begun from today''.

Zinjurde said, "There are 24 posts of administration officers in various civic departments in PCMC. We have been demanding that the civic employees be promoted to fill these posts as it is a promotional post. However, the PCMC recently changed the qualification for these posts to minimum graduation degree. The civic employees who joined the PCMC as clerks many years ago do not have this qualification and will be retiring in a few years."

"We want them to be promoted as administrative officers. But the civic administration insists that the persons appointed to that posts should be graduates. There are state government officials who just hold matriculation and standard XII pass certificates but are still holding higher posts. So the civic employees who also hold such qualification should get the post of administrative officers," said Zinjurde.

"A state government official had come on deputation to join PCMC as administrative officer a few days ago. This is injustice to the civic employees. Already there are six state government officials holding the posts of assistant commissioner in PCMC while only five civic employees hold such posts. If the state government employees are to be appointed to the posts of administration officers, then it would mean that all the big posts are being given to the state government officials and depriving the civic employees of their rights."