Now it's river staff's turn to threaten strike
Our Correspondent, Barisal
River transport employees and workers have put forward a 26-point demand with an ultimatum that if the authorities do not meet their demands by September 24, they will go for an indefinite strike from the next day. The Noujan Sramik Federation, an organisation of the employees and workers of eight types of river transport, gave the ultimatum at a rally at Barisal launch terminal Thursday night. The river transports include passenger launches, cargo vessels, fishing trawlers and oil tankers. Federation President and oil trader Golam Mowla chaired the rally, which was addressed by Khwaza Iqbal, district unit president of the pro-government Jatiyatabadi Noujan Sramik Karmachari Dal, and federation leaders Abdul Malek, Sheikh Abul Hashem, Abul Bashar and Abdul Hamid. They said a memorandum containing their demands was submitted to the ministries concerned on March 15 this year but a response was yet to be received. Their demands include increase in pay and other benefits of the employees and workers, an end to toll collection, enforcement of relevant laws for operation of launches, filling up of all vacant posts of master and driver of vessels, modernisation of river transports as per rules, steps to ensure navigability of river routes and marking the danger points in the routes. An indefinite strike by launch owners from August 12 to press certain demands ended on its seventh day without any of the demands met.
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