Four sanitary workers begin indefinite hunger strike in Chennai

CHENNAI: Four woman sanitary workers from the Royapuram and Thiru-Vi-Ka Nagar zones began an indefinite hunger strike on Monday at the Uzhaippor Urimai Iyakkam (UUI) office in Ambattur, demanding that they be reinstated as direct employees of the Greater Chennai Corporation and not under the Chennai Enviro Solutions Private Limited (CESPL), which has taken up the solid waste management operations in these two zones. The workers Bharathi, Jenova, Geetha and Vasanthi have vowed to continue the protest consuming nothing but water and not move from there until their demands are met. The sanitary workers of these two zones have been protesting for the past 109 days now. Police personnel have been stationed at the protest site for security, and a medical check-up was conducted by doctors from the Avadi Government Hospital to monitor the protesters health. The UUI has also deployed its own doctors, the workers said. Speaking to the TNIE , Bharathi S (39), one of the four workers, said, We do not want to continue this protest, but we have been pushed into this situation because our demands are still not being addressed by the GCC or state government. We want the chief minister to listen to us and stand with us as he always says Ungaludan Stalin. She added, I have two daughters, one studying in a government college, while the other is in a private institution where the semester fee alone is `30,000 with the deadline already nearing. Without our jobs, it has become extremely difficult. We do not want to work under CESPL because there is no job security there, she said. Earlier, on November 14, the Madras High Court had permitted the sanitary workers to continue their protest under specific conditions.