Karnataka secretariat staff to hold strike against move to scrap non-essential posts

A section of the secretariat employees will boycott work on Friday to protest the state government’s move of “rationalising the workforce” by reducing staffers in the Vidhana Soudha, Vikasa Soudha and MS Building.

According to Karnataka Government Secretariat Employees Association president P Guruswamy, some 5,000 employees working in the secretariat and legislature will skip work on Friday.

Their grouse is with the government’s plan to implement recommendations of the Karnataka Administrative Reforms Commission-2.

Apart from group ‘C’ and ‘D’ workers, under secretaries and other officials will also join the protest as their role will be reduced to that of case workers, Guruswamy said.

He said that the state government had not reached out to them to address their concerns. “For now, we have organised a one-day bandh. If the government goes ahead with the Administrative Reforms Committee-2 recommendations to reduce government staff, we will boycott work indefinitely in the coming days,” Guruswamy said.

The government is implementing the commission’s recommendations without even issuing a government order, he said. The Commission has recommended ‘rationalising’ the workforce at government offices by scrapping non-essential posts.

Disciplinary action

Terming the bandh call by Karnataka State Secretariat Employees’ Association as illegal, Chief Secretary P Ravikumar has asked all employees to be present for work on Friday.

In a circular, he said that the government has taken the bandh call seriously. “If any of the secretariat employees are absent without prior permission it will be considered as dies-non,” he said. Moreover, criminal/disciplinary action will be initiated against those obstructing the officers or staff willing to attend office, Ravikumar said.

Responding to the circular, the Association said that such circulars were routinely used to thwart employee protests. “If the CS had held a single meeting based on our memorandums since he took charge, then the opportunity to issue the circular (prohibiting the protest) would not have arose,” it said, urging all employees to participate in the protest.