Unceasing cease Work strike : Come to a meeting point
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 31 2018 -

For 70 days, that is over two months, State Government employees under the JAC of AMTUC and AMGEO have been on a cease work strike demanding implementation of the 7th Pay.

No sign that the BJP led Government here is ready to consider their demand, leave alone implement the new pay scale. So what is the way forward ?

Two things are clear. One the State Government is just not in the position to implement the new pay structure. In other words, it is broke.

Two, State Government employees are not ready to call off their stir insisting that the BJP led Government at Imphal should cultivate its good friends in the BJP led Government at New Delhi.

Clearly the communication gap between the Government and its employees is clear. The cease work strike cannot go on indefinitely and the Government cannot sack all the employees on strike.

The result is the deadlock that one sees. Far from softening its stand, it is clear that the JAC of AMTUC and AMGEO is more than ready to spread its agitation with more and more employees under different organisations joining the stir.

The result is most of the Government offices are lying defunct. This is certainly not what one would call administration or governance.

The JAC and the Government also have talked a couple of times earlier, but the earlier engagements have not been able to break the dead lock and so what one sees is employees on strike and all file related works coming to a screeching halt.

Can Manipur really afford this ? The State Government employees obviously have every right to demand that they be paid at par with their counter parts in the Central service as they do the same work.

Also significant to note that other States which are under the BJP have announced that the 7th Pay will be implemented.

Why the State Government is not keen to implement the new pay structure can be understood from the misadventure that the State underwent when the then State Government implemented the 5th Pay more than 15 years back.

It was unpaid salaries for months and overdraft becoming hot news in all the dailies published in Manipur.

For a State which is salary driven, one can still recollect how trade and business came to a screeching halt at the commercial areas of Imphal.

The question is, would Manipur want to undergo another such round, when salaries of Government employees were held up for months and overdraft entered the lexicon of everyone.

A meeting point. This is what is needed urgently for as things stand, more than 70 days have been lost in the cease work strike and no Government can afford to have a cease work strike for such a long period.

Talk things over sincerely and openly. Let the Government also make its position known to the employees and let the employees too have an open mind.

Give time to the Government to approach the Centre and see if New Delhi can bail out the State financially. For this proper home work needs to be done.

The employees too must have an open mind to understand the plight of the Government. The stand off will not benefit anyone in the long run.

This is the bottomline and all should accept this.