Scores of people working under the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) staged a protest in front of its headquarters at the Ripon Building on Wednesday, July 12, against the outsourcing of garbage collection to private companies in the Royapuram and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar zones. Of the 15 zones under GCC, 10 are already currently managed by private companies (Ramky and Urbaser), while the remaining five — Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, Anna Nagar, Ambattur and Tondiarpet — are still managed by the GCC. Earlier this year, GCC had announced that it is looking to privatise waste management in Royapuram and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, with the remaining three zones to soon follow.
The protest on Wednesday was held by members of the Chennai Corporation’s Red Flag Union under the banner of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU). The Corporation has given oral assurance to workers that they can continue in their jobs even after the private firms take over, at the last councillors’ meeting held on June 30. However, workers said they still fear losing their jobs and the uncertain work conditions under private companies, even as they have been consistently demanding regularisation of their jobs with better pay and benefits under GCC. Some of the protesters also raised slogans against the GCC’s decision to continue hiring more temporary contract-based sanitation workers.
The protest began from inside the premises of the Ripon Building which houses the GCC office and continued at the Grand Southern Trunk Road. Tamil Nadu’s CITU state secretary C Thiruvettai addressed the media and said, “There are many sanitation workers who are employed by the Corporation in zones where waste collection hasn’t been handed over to private players. All of their jobs are endangered today since the GCC has decided to privatise waste collection.”
Thiruvettai also claimed that most of the sanitation workers are from Scheduled Castes or other lowered castes. “By eliminating permanent job opportunities for them, the government is pushing them to work for bare minimum wages with no additional benefits,” he added.
The protesters blocked the Grand Southern Trunk Road in protest, following which the police detained them. The protesters were transported through five Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) buses to a wedding hall (the Dharmaprakash Kalyana Mandapam in Purasaiwakkam), where they were detained for ‘peace talks’. As of 5 pm on Wednesday, TNM found that the police were yet to allow the protesters to leave.
#CITU workers protest against the privatisation of garbage collection in zones 5&6 in #Chennai, outside the #GCC office, Ripon building. pic.twitter.com/I1qBWMQPy4
— Nidharshana Raju (@NidharshanaR) July 12, 2023
A similar protest was staged by CITU outside the Ripon Building on June 30, when the last councillors’ meeting was called. At the councillors’ meeting which was headed by Mayor R Priya and GCC Commissioner J Radhakrishnan, the four Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] councillors in the Corporation staged a walkout in protest against the privatisation of garbage collection and management in Chennai city.
It is to be noted that on May 31, GCC had sanctioned around 2,000 temporary sanitation workers under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM). Out of the 2,000, 966 workers were sanctioned for Royapuram zone alone. The announcement was made despite sustained demands for regularisation of jobs, better pay, better working hours with weekly off days and other benefits from workers’ unions.