Safai workers go on strike till May 7, garbage mounts, road sweeping hit

Gurgaon: MCG sanitation workers have gone on strike till May 7, raising the risk of mounting waste across the city as road sweeping and waste clearance remain disrupted.

Workers staged a protest at old MCG office on Tuesday, accusing Haryana govt of ignoring their 19-point charter of demands despite three rounds of discussions. They later submitted a memorandum for the chief minister to mayor Raj Rani Malhotra at her Civil Lines home.

Union members said the strike began after talks with urban local bodies department commissioner and secretary Ashok Meena on April 30 ended without any concrete outcome. After the meeting, workers suspended operations and launched the protest, affecting routine sanitation services and increasing concerns over accumulating garbage in several areas.

A key demand of the protesting workers is the regularisation of contractual sanitation employees. Union leaders warned that if the govt fails to address the employees’ demands promptly, the Sarv Karamchari Sangh Haryana may expand the agitation and mobilise support from municipal and fire department employees across the state. They alleged that contract workers have been exploited for 15-20 years without any regularisation policy.

The strike is likely to extend beyond May 7 if demands are not met, said the sanitation workers.

“In Nov 2024, at the Pragatdivas of Maharishi Valmiki ji in Jind, CM Nayab Singh Saini and minister Krishna Bedi announced a salary of Rs 26,000 for rural sanitation workers and Rs 27,000 for urban sanitation workers; however, no salary increase has been implemented to date,” said state co-secretary of the union Sushila Devi, while addressing the protesting workers on Tuesday.

President Basant Kumar of the Gurgaon unit of the union said, “On Feb 8, 2023, under pressure from the agitation, the govt issued a letter to regularise payroll employees, stating that a committee would be formed to regularise contractual employees. However, the BJP govt has not fully implemented it to date and has not regularised a single sanitation or sewer man employee during its 11-year tenure.”

He added that if the govt accepted the legitimate demands of the employees in time — including martyr status and Rs 1 crore assistance for deceased fire department employees, govt jobs, and other demands — the strike would not have been extended.

Residents say the strike has further worsened the city’s sanitation, which was already substandard. “The situation has worsened with the strike of sanitation workers. Besides dumping on the roadsides, even vacant plots are littered with garbage and overgrown with weeds, a job of the sanitation workers that is being neglected,” said Bhawani Shankar Tripathy, a resident of Sector 23A.

Meanwhile, MCG's additional commissioner Ravinder Yadav said, “The workers’ concerns and demands pertain to state-level matters. We have held multiple rounds of discussions with them, but the issues must ultimately be addressed by the state govt. At present, sanitation services are being managed through workers outsourced via private agencies. We will continue to assess the situation and respond accordingly as it evolves.”
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