More than a hundred contract workers began an indefinite strike on Wednesday at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Calicut, protesting against new employment norms that rendered them jobless with immediate effect.

The protesting employees, including drivers, security staff, sanitation and horticulture workers of the central institution in Kozhikode, Kerala, resorted to agitation after the management refused to engage in dialogue.

The recent order reserves 30 per cent of the jobs for ex-service personnel and 10 per cent for women, changes the basic qualification requirement from Class VIII to Class X pass and lowers the retirement age from 60 to 55. The decision left 169 workers unemployed.

“A total of 169 of the 312 contract employees in these categories have lost their jobs. At this age it is difficult for us to find alternative employment,” T. Shivashankaran, a security staff who lost his job as he’s over 55 years of age, told The Telegraph on Wednesday.

Although the workers were hired through an external agency, their contracts were renewed annually.

Following the new order, the agency promptly informed them not to report to work the next day.

Now part of the team of workers leading the agitation, Shivashankaran said they would continue the strike as long as it takes for their rights. “We are determined to carry on this fight since it’s about saving our only means of livelihood. We have families and children who need support,” he said.

The workers on strike braved heavy downpours to sit through the protest outside the NIT-C gates with only a plastic sheet as a cover.

The CPM’s Centre of Indian Trade Unions (Citu), the Congress’s Indian National Trade Union Congress (Intuc) and BJP’s Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh have extended their support to the workers.

“I joined the NIT-C as security staff in 2010 and continuously worked until the latest order. But with the new criteria kicking in, we have all lost our jobs,” he said.

He said a memorandum to the NIT-C management didn’t fetch any response. “That was when we decided to go on a strike since we have no other way of expressing our anguish at losing our only means of livelihood, that too abruptly,” Shivashankaran said.

The NIT-C did not comment on the issue.

Earlier this month, the NIT-C was in the news for imposing a fine of ₹33 lakh on five students as proportionate damage for loss of a working day for leading a strike against a night curfew enforced after protests against the consecration of the Ayodhya
Ram temple.