Patiala: The office employees of the Education Department, who are on strike demanding the fulfillment of their rightful demands and an end to salary cuts, have announced a major action. The office employees have stated that if the issues, including the regularization of salary cuts, are not resolved in the meeting under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Harpal Cheema on December 26, and if the government tries to impose any coercive measures on the employees, a secret action will be carried out in Chandigarh on December 26.
The leaders stated that in the meeting on March 14, 2024, under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Harpal Cheema, it was agreed that office employees would be regularized on the lines of the 8886 teachers, and Punjab’s Advocate General had also agreed. There are no legal hurdles to regularizing employees in the Education Department now.
They also said that despite Finance Minister Harpal Cheema’s orders to resolve the salary cut and regularization issues within a month after the meeting on November 6, and again within 15 days following the meeting on December 9, the officers in the Finance and Personnel departments are disregarding these instructions.
They mentioned that some ministers from the ruling party have begun to criticize the employees’ struggle, and Education Minister Harjot Bains has even started threatening employees with job cuts. They added that the government, which came to power promising to eliminate the contract system, is now avoiding resolving the issues.
The strike of office employees of the Education Department, which started as a pen-down strike, has entered its 20th day, and the sit-in outside the Education Bhawan has reached its 26th day.
In a press statement, the leaders of the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan Mid-Day Meal Office Employees Union, Shobhit Bhagat, Gagandeep Sharma, Rajeev Sharma, Sukhraj, and Manjeet Singh, stated that the state bureaucracy is misleading the ministers of the government. Despite the resolution of the issues in the Cabinet Sub-Committee meeting on March 14, 2024, the employees are still stuck in bureaucratic red tape. The office employees’ Dearness Allowance (DA) has been stopped since 2020, and 576 employees have had a salary cut of ₹5000 per month without any notice.