Contractual Workers of UP Power Sector Not Paid for 2 Months, Threaten to Boycott Work

Lucknow: Contractual workers working with Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) resorted to protest yet again as they have not received salaries for the past two months for the second time in a row. 

The workers held demonstrations in several districts - Bareilly, Piliphit, Agra, Bulandshahr, and Lucknow - outside the powerhouse offices against the UPPCL authorities after a long deadlock over their demands for equal pay. The demonstrations were held under the banner of Uttar Pradesh Bijli Karamchari Sangh.

Apart from equal pay for equal work, their other demands are regularisation of service, compensation to the employees injured on duty, appointment on compassionate ground to the family members of employees who died while serving the company. With no salary for the past two months amid the pandemic, workers are left in the lurch. 

Fed up with the government apathy towards them, the union threatened that if the government did not concede soon to their demands, including regularisation of jobs and hike in salaries, they would be forced to boycott work, and the entire state would face "blackouts". 

"The contractual workers in the Power sector are not getting salaries on time and other benefits that are given to a government employee for the same work. For the past 10-15 years, we have been demanding that our jobs must be regularised by providing us with the same benefits, but it fell on deaf ears," Amit Pandey, a union leader, told NewsClick. He added that due to the salary delay, the poor and needy were forced to suffer unnecessarily.

For years, the contractual workers of Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited have been making the same demands — equal pay for equal work, an increase in allowances and regularisation of contractual employees. When nothing came out of talks with the government, they started protests. 

Last year, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the linesmen and other staff had gone on strike against salary payment delays. 

A lineman had told NewsClick that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath highlighted his government's achievements of providing 24-hour electricity supply in the state. At the same time, he neglected the genuine demands directly connected with the livelihood of thousands of contractual electricity employees working round the clock for the government. 

"We have been working 16 hours per day so that people can get better electricity supply, but when we raise our issue of increasing our wages, we either receive abuse or termination letter. Is this what we deserve for the hard work? How can one survive with Rs 8,000 when a permanent employee gets Rs 25,000 salary and other government benefits for the same work?" asked Jitendra Saini, a contractual worker with UPPCL, while speaking to NewsClick.

Demanding the abolition of contractor system and the implementation of the equal pay for equal work order of the Supreme Court, he said they had nothing in the name of dress or identity card. When the contractual workers approach concerned officers, they are asked to keep their mouths shut and work or look for other jobs. 

The power sector workers demanded that the government should give power employees an insurance cover of Rs 50 lakh each as they have been working through the COVID-19 crisis and the lockdown periods. The workers felt that just as the state government had offered insurance coverage to health workers and police personnel, power employees should also be covered for risking their lives during the pandemic. 

"During the second wave of the pandemic, we lost many of our workers working on duty but no one got the attention of the government. We are facing financial distress but have not received any compensation from the government," a worker alleged.