Staff Reporter:
The government has asserted train workers’ overtime pay facilities, suspended since 2021, will not be restarted, making it all but certain that the workers would go on indefinite work abstention from Tuesday.
The work boycott by train drivers, guards and ticket inspectors, collectively known as running staff, could effectively halt rail comuunication across the country.
On Thursday, the Finance Division sent a letter to the Railway Ministry reaffirming the railway workers would not get any additional pay on top of their daily allowance and monthly salaries. The decision came to light Friday.
On 3 November 2021, the finance ministry terminated overtime pay for newly recruited running staff. Until then, the workers used to get additional pay for working after the fixed eight-hour schedule. Their retirement benefits also included 75% of their total overtime pay.
On 13 April 2022, in response to the AL government move, the railway workers across the country observed a work abstention, halting nationwide train services, claimed Md Majibur Rahman, chief coordinator of Railway Running Staff Unity Council.
On Wednesday, Md Majibur told a press briefing the Awami League government reduced the salaries, pensions, and gratuities of railway staff in 2021 to conceal corruption and financial mismanagement in the railway sector.
Mojibur highlighted that railway running staff have been receiving pensions and gratuities based on overtime pay for the past 160 years.
The interim government has been given three opportunities to resolve their grievances, but no progress has been made, he alleged at the press meet.
“During political or natural crises, it is these workers who have kept the trains running,” he said, adding the running staffs do not even enjoy weekly or public holiday breaks.
