Kolkata, March 14 (IANS) The joint forum of state government employees in West Bengal on Tuesday announced that they will go for “digital non-cooperation” as a mark of protest against the non-payment of dearness allowance arrears.
The new line of movement follows a day’s strike this month in the matter and was preceded by a two-day pen-down strike in February.
The joint forum’s convener Bhaskar Ghosh told media persons that as part of the “digital non-cooperation”, all agitating employees will not follow any instruction given to them through WhatsApp messages.
“All the agitating employees will exit from the different official WhatsApp Groups. We will perform our duties strictly within the office hours and follow instructions given through official emails. We will not follow any instructions received over mobile phones. We will not use our personal computers for performing any official duty as we had been doing so far,” Ghosh said. He also said that the “digital non-cooperation,” will start from March 18.
The announcement of the joint forum on this count just came within an hour after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said at a public programme that it was unjustified for state government employees to demand dearness allowance at the central rate.
“The pay scales are different for the state government and Union government. The state government has its own economic parameters. In the earlier Left Front regime, the teachers did not get salaries in time. We have regularised that after we came to power. We brought many employees under the pension scheme,” she said.
Soon after that, the joint forum announced the decision to go for “digital non- cooperation”, with their representatives claimed that since the state government is so insensitive about their legitimate demands, they will also go for thorough non- cooperation with it.
They also said that the new line of protest is in retaliation to the state government’s step to slap show cause notices to its employees for participating in the strike this month.
–IANS
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