EDMC mayor asks sanitation workers to call off proposed strike

East Delhi mayor Harshdeep Malhotra today sought to offer an olive branch to sanitation workers of the municipal corporation, who have threatened to go on a strike from January 27, saying efforts were being made to regularise payment of their salaries.
Sanitation workers of the three BJP-led civic bodies have decided to go on a strike citing alleged non-payment of salaries and arrears.
In an appeal to the employee unions to call off the strike, Malhotra claimed the salary of the sanitation staff for December month has been released.
However, sanitation workers leaders said that they were determined to go on a strike to seek for their demands which include regular salaries, payment of arrears, regularisation of contract-based employees, and unification of the three corporations.

"There are 64 wards in the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) and sanitation workers have not been paid for 1-3 months. The municipal officials release salaries in a few wards and claim that salaries of all the employees have been paid," claimed Sanjay Gehlot, president of Swatantra Mazdoor Vikas Sanyukt Morcha.
"We are ready for the strike and all the employees including sanitation workers, doctors, engineers, teachers, class III and IV employees of the three municipal corporations will participate in it," he said.
The workers have planned to strike work from January 27, on which they would stage a "massive" demonstration at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence and hand over a memorandum of their demands to him, he added.