Tasmac staff stage hunger strike in Madurai

Madurai: Members of the Tasmac Employees State Federation staged a hunger strike here on Monday, pressing the Tamil Nadu government and Tasmac management to regularise long-serving staff and address long-pending welfare demands.The protest focused on granting permanent status to shop-level employees who have served for 22 to 23 years. The union also sought an increase in the retirement age from 58 to 60 and the implementation of the Employee State Insurance (ESI) medical scheme.
State secretary of the federation M S Sivakumar said the agitation was aimed at securing basic job security and welfare measures. "Employees who have worked for over two decades are still without permanent status. Our demands, including regularisation and ESI coverage, have remained unresolved for years," he said. The federation called for replacing the existing management-run health scheme with the ESI medical scheme and enforcing an eight-hour workday. It insisted that any work beyond eight hours should be compensated with double wages as overtime. Workers also demanded that the government withdraw the "empty bottle return" scheme, alleging it increases their workload without adequate support. The union further sought an end to what it described as arbitrary disciplinary actions, including heavy fines, GST on penalties and sudden suspensions, and called for transparent inquiries into alleged misconduct. The federation said it would continue its agitation if the authorities failed to respond to their demands.