Postal employees call off proposed strike

“Almost all our demands are met and we will be rolling back our strike,” said Ashok Khedekar,assistant secretary,National Federation of Postal Employees.

Over 2,000 postal employees from the city along with over five lakh from across the country had planned to go on a nationwide strike pressing for several demands,including recruitment and privatisation-related concerns.

A statement from the Department of Posts says,“There is no decision by the department to outsource any postal service. A separate meeting will be held with the staff to discuss the McKinsey report and the objective of restructuring the services.” Project Arrow ,that aims at meeting 100 per cent delivery every day,has led to increased work pressure on postal employees.

“It means we have to do the work of 105 persons when only 60 of us are working,as the rest of the vacancies are yet to be filled. This has been a torturous target as most of us have been working overtime of three hours for as less as Rs 15.85 per hour as overtime income,” C B Surve,circle secretary,class four employees’ union,had said earlier.

The new resolution states that there will be ‘no harassment in Project Arrow offices’ besides promising to meet 26 other demands of the staff.