City pats striking motormen

Suggestion 4: Please consider their demands sympathetically, they run Mumbai.

These aren’t radio intercepts of a hardcore union, but a sample of the suggestions from, believe it or not, city rail commuters to agitating motormen. This from the very people who have often vented their ire at the beleaguered motormen for everything from delayed trains to cancelled schedules.

Suggestion books placed at the Churchgate and VT suburban stations are quickly filling up with comments from passing commuters sympathising with motormen protesting against the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission. The motormenhave been on a relay hunger strike at the two major stations since Monday.

The response has taken motormen by surprise. “The response of the commuters has been beyond our expectations,” nods motorman Dattatrey Phadke, even as a sea of humanity surges past the fasting motormen sprawled on mattresses at Churchgate station. Some pause to read the banners while others scribble down their comments. Surprisingly, a majority of the commuters urged motormen to intensify their agitation along the lines of their September 18 one-day mass casual leave last year, which virtually paralysed the city.

One sensitive commuter even slipped D V Phadke a five-stanza Marathi poem empathising with the motormen. “We work day and night serving the commuters, but what is the reward we get for this O Lord!” intones the poem.

Many of the commuters suggested that the motormen plan their agitation along the lines of air-traffic controllers. But the motormen feel they are expected to maintain airline pilot-like physical fitnessin an environment similar to the army. Motormen say they have been given pay scales lower than those of teachers, pharmacists and law assistants, professions they were on par with before the Fifth Pay Commission was implemented. However, the relay hunger-strike has not affected suburban rail services in any way as the strike is carried on by batches of five motormen every 24 hours.

Approximately 1,000 motormen ply nearly 5 lakh passengers in the country’s commuting capital everyday. This constitutes half the number of people transported on the Indian Railways every day.