Split in Morcha casual staff union - New unit says it will not be a tool in hands of vested interest

Kalimpong, April 28 TT: A section of casual workers has broken away from a Gorkha Janmukti Morcha-affiliated union to form their own apolitical organisation, accusing Bimal Gurung’s party of taking them for a ride over the years and doing nothing to regularise their jobs.

The desertion was not unexpected was evident as many Morcha supporters had been spotted in GNLF rallies before the election and the party had already issued a deadline for its straying lot to come back into the fold.

The Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council Karmachari Sangathan, which has broken away from the Janmukti Asthai Karmachari Sangathan (JAKS), claimed that its priority would be the regularisation of the jobs of its members.

The split of the JAKS, which claims that all 6,000 casual workers of the DGHC are its members, took place in Kurseong yesterday where the subdivisional committee of the new faction was formed. The breakaway unit said it was splitting from the JAKS as the latter had failed to get the jobs of DGHC temporary employees regularised.

“We (the temporary employees) were only being used as tools but our grievances remained unaddressed,” said Anil Rai, the spokesperson for the breakaway faction.

Rai said the new DGHC Sangathan would strive to become an apolitical organisation as past experiences has shown that all political parties used the casual employees as tools for their vested interest. “Our number one priority would remain the regularisation of our jobs. However, till that happens we want a hike in our salaries,” he added.

The Morcha said it was not unduly worried by the split engineered by a handful of individuals with questionable credibility.

“In any case, we had already expelled Anil Rai from the party. As far as the job regularisation is concerned, the party remains fully committed to getting the job done. The government has already agreed to regularise the jobs and we will pursue the matter with the next government as well with our mandate reinforced (by the results of the Assembly election),” said Morcha spokesperson Harka Bahadur Chhetri.

The DGHC Sangathan dared the JAKS to act against its members.

Earlier, JAKS president Machendra Subba had set May 13 as the deadline for the return of contractual workers who had deserted the organisation.

A number of them had been seen supporting the GNLF during the recent election campaign.

Today, Subba sought to make light of the new faction. “We knew all along that these people are GNLF sympathisers,” he said, claiming that only a handful of 200 employees was its members.

Rai said the strength of the DGHC Sangathan would grow in the coming days. “We will be forming our Kalimpong branch committee next, followed by the Darjeeling branch committee. Once we have all three branches in place, we will form our central committee,” he added.

The 21-member Kurseong executive committee of the DGHC Sangathan is headed by Mitra Gurung as its president.

Observers said the formation of the breakaway faction of the JAKS could well turn out to be more than an embarrassment for the Morcha if a significant number of DGHC employees joined it.

“We still do not know the strength of the new organisation. Till then, we will have to wait and watch,” said an observer.

The JAKS was formed months after the birth of the Morcha in October 2007. Its main focus was getting the jobs of over 6000 contractual workers regularised. Following an indefinite hunger strike by the workers, the state government had on September 17, 2009, given a written assurance to start the process to make them permanent. Similar assurance was subsequently given by B.L. Meena, the then acting administrator of the DGHC. However, nothing concrete has emerged from those assurances yet.

Morcha president Gurung had said during the campaign that the first priority of the three MLAs the party hoped to send from the hills would be to get the jobs regularised.

The spokesperson for the DGHC Sangathan, however, said there was too much political interference in the affairs of the temporary workers. “The JAKS used us only to carry the party (read Morcha) flag,” he said.