Mumbai bus strike called off on ninth day

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, January 16

Employees of Mumbai's civic-owned Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport undertaking on Wednesday called off their nine-day old bus strike under a compromise struck by the Bombay High Court.

Trade union leader Shashank Rao, who spearheaded the strike, told reporters this afternoon that buses would be back on the roads later in the day. Earlier on Wednesday, the Bombay High Court appointed a retired judge of the high court to mediate between the union and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and asked the employees to call off the strike.

The union convened a meeting of the employees at the Wadala bus depot in South Central Mumbai to discuss the issue. More than 32,000 employees of BEST have been on strike since January 8 for higher pay and the merger of the loss-making undertaking with the cash-rich BMC. Lawyers for the BEST told the court that a “ten-step increment” would be given to the employees as an interim measure from this month with the final award being decided by the mediator in three months' time.

The court was also told that a high-powered committee has been formed to examine merger of the BEST's budget with that of the BMC.

Disposing of the case, Chief Justice NH Patil of the Bombay High Court felt that the strike should not have happened at all. However, the court noted that the civic body should have shown more consideration to the BEST workers.

"It is not easy for families to survive with low salaries," Chief Justice Patil observed.