The United Employees Union (UEU), a frontal organisation of Binay Tamang’s Gorkha Janmukti Morcha comprising pay-band employees of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) on Monday announced its decision to disaffiliate from the party and go independent.
The Binay Tamang camp immediately reacted to the development and said that many GTA employees were not happy with the UEU’s decision and that the party would form a GTA Employees Organisation on November 6.
There are 4,565 such workers in GTA.
The UEU’s decision has come as a setback for the Binay Tamang camp at a time the political situation in the hills is in a flux with the Bimal Gurung faction of the Morcha deciding to dump the BJP-led NDA and support Trinamul in the 2021 Bengal Assembly polls.
UEU president Anil Rai, however, said the present political situation in the hills had no bearing on their decision.
“The decision has nothing to do with politics. We are not looking at who will come and who will leave (in the context of Bimal Gurung returning to hills after three years) as this has been happening for many years,” said Rai.
“We were with them (Binay camp) for three years and we feel we achieved little. Our objective is to get our demand (of regularisation of employee jobs) fulfilled,” said Rai.
The present employee association was formed in 2017 replacing the Janmukti Astai Karmachari Sangatan (JAKS) affiliated to the Bimal Gurung-led Morcha.
The UEU initially said it would stay “apolitical” but soon aligned with the Tamang camp, saying only political will could solve its problems.
The catalyst for the latest decision seems to be chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s reply to the GTA board of administration chairman Anit Thapa, that the state government was not in a position to take any decision regarding workers during this pandemic.
Thapa had raised the regularisation issue during an administrative meeting at Uttarkanya in Siliguri last month.
Some hill observers believe that the political flux might have influenced the decision. Bimal Gurung supporters are mobilising across the hills everyday.
“Had the issue been raised properly earlier (before the Siliguri meeting), the chief minister might probably have had a different take on the issue,” said Rai.
The employees that comprise more than 90 per cent of the GTA staffs recently held a pen-down strike. Many of these employees were recruited as contract workers when the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) was formed in 1988. Since then, many served under Bimal Gurung’s GTA, under Binay Tamang, the former GTA head now replaced by Anit Thapa.
Over the years, the status of GTA employees changed from contractual workers to “pay band workers” and their minimum salaries now start from Rs 10,000 (Group D staff) to Rs 22,000 (Group A employees such as engineers).
There have been a couple of occasions when it seemed that their demand was heard.
On September 17, 2009, following a hunger strike by JAKS, the state government had given a written assurance to the JAKS to regularise 3,472 employees. The fast lifted following the assurance. However, the government backtracked and said the promise had been given under duress.
On May 14, 2015, Calcutta High Court directed the state government to convene a meeting with the GTA in four months to decide how it would set in motion the process of absorbing these employees in permanent posts, but not much progress was made.
When the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration was formed in 2012, there was a provision for setting up Subordination Service Selection Board in the GTA empowered to fill up Group D, C and B posts in GTA following financial approval from the state government. The board has not yet been formed.
Keshav Raj Pokhrel, spokesman of the Morcha (Binay Tamang faction), said: “We welcome the UEU’s decision. However, members of the sub-divisional committee of their union expressed their dissatisfaction. Hence, we will form the GTA Employees Organisation on November 6.”
