Stepping up confrontation with the Punjab government, the protesting staff, under the banner of “Punjab Sanjha Mulazim Manch” (Joint Employees’ Forum), on Sunday decided to go on mass leave on September 8 if notices issued to them over the August 27 strike are not withdrawn.
The move followed a meeting of different unions in Ludhiana to decide the next course of action. After a three-hour discussion, the Joint Coordination Committee of government employees unveiled an elaborate road map for escalated agitation, including another mass casual leave on October 21 and 22. On Saturday, the Punjab government had directed all administrative secretaries and department heads to issue show-cause notices and initiate strict action under applicable service rules against staff found absent from duty without authorisation on August 27 to protest against the state government. This followed an earlier directive issued by the department of personnel on August 27, ordering all special chief secretaries, additional chief secretaries, financial commissioners, principal secretaries and administrative secretaries to share the list of absentees with the department of general administration. Who heads the Joint Coordination Committee of the employees unions, protesters will gherao the residences of Punjab cabinet ministers on September 12 and 13, according to Sukhchain Singh Khaira.
“The government’s inability to address the demands of employees, pensioners and honorarium workers has left them with no option but to intensify the agitation,” said Hardeep Todarpur, spokesperson of the employee unions. Over 150 employees’ bodies, under the banner of Punjab Sanjha Mulazim Manch, had joined hands for the “maha hartal” on August 27 to press the state government to accept their long-pending demands. The same day, the Joint Coordination Committee of the government employees was called to Jalandhar for talks with chief minister Bhagwant Mann, but the latter refused to give an audience, posting on X that while staff are part of the state’s family, “dialogue and strikes cannot proceed together”, escalating tensions.
