MISLED BY THE KIN OR “ROYALLY” DUPED?
A Case Study of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation workers strike of 2019
NAME
SUNEEL POPURI
CHETNA SHARMA
KARTHIKA V J
LAKSHMI HARIDAS
SAI SRINATH RAJENDRAN
TYADA AJITH KUMAR VENKATA SAI
ROLL NUMBER
H22131
H22132
H22142
H22144
H22162
H22176
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the people who have extended their help in
completion of this project.
Firstly, we would like to thank our project guide Prof. Pranabesh Ray for giving us the opportunity to
work on this project and for his constant guidance throughout the case study.
We are extremely thankful to Mr. Vijaya Sarathi (Personnel Manager,Grindwell industries, Tirupati)
who spared us his valuable time to talk to us about different IR issues and stakeholder’s take on them.
Lastly, we would like to express our gratitude towards Mr. Srinivasa Rao, a driver working with the
TSRTC, who helped us understand the ground realities of the issues and shared his perspectives with
us.
THE CASE
It is Monday, November the 25th, 2019. Mr. Sunil Sharma, the Managing Director (MD) of the
Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC or RTC), has just gotten off a call with the Chief
Secretary (CS) of the Telangana state where he was made clear of the government’s stand on the RTC
employees’ Joint Action Committee (JAC) decision to end their on-going strike and immediate
reporting to their duties from the next day. The Chief Secretary conveyed that the government has
taken a decision to monitor the pending case in the labour court and it does not want any law-andorder issue the next day. He also conveyed that the government is ready to deploy police and provide
the management with any kind of resources to ensure a peaceful Tuesday. Sunil sat in his chair, with
the burden of a decision to make and was contemplating the incidents that led here.
TIMELINE OF EVENTS:
Sep 4th: The Joint Action Committee formed consisting of RTC workers from 9 trade unions issues a
strike notice explaining their concerns and proposals through a 26-point charter of demands to the
management. Their main demand of merger was due to the fact that the government of
neighbouring/parent state of Andhra Pradesh taking a decision to merge RTC with the government.
Sep 10th: The management called the strike to be “opportunistic” and reiterated that it would result
in havoc considering the fact that the corporation is already in heavy losses.
Sep 19th: A meeting was proposed between the JAC and the management to be held on October 2nd.
The JAC mentions that the future of their indefinite strike would be decided based on the outcome of
this meeting.
Oct 2nd: The negotiation meeting ends in vain as there was no compromise from either side. The
workers announce that their strike is on starting from October 5th. They choose this date as it marks
the beginning of the festive season (Dussehra) which is one of the major seasons for the corporation.
The government announces that anybody not reporting to work on Oct 5th will cease to be an
employee of TSRTC immediately and in the future.
Oct 5th: 50,000+ workers across the state do not report to their duties. A mere 150 employees,
majority of them not belonging to the driver kiln, report on the day. The transport minister announces
that the government is considering their dismissal.
The opposition parties (INC, BJP) accuses that the “arrogance” of the CM has resulted in this strike.
Meanwhile, it was observed that the commoners of the state have faced several problems because of
the strike. Private bus operators and Taxi-Walas were seen “looting” people going to their native
places on the eve of Dusshera. 2-3 times the regular charge was quoted for a vehicle filled up to twice
the capacity for journeys taking from six to ten hours. It is estimated that at least 40-50% of
approximately 1-crore populated Hyderabad gets empty during this festival season. Autos, cabs
running inside the city were also charging extraordinary amounts due to the lack of intra-city buses.
Metros, MMTS trains were seen over-packed all around the city.
Oct 6th: The talks between a high-level committee consisting of IAS officers that represent the
government and the trade union leaders had failed to reach a consensus. The Chief Minister, K
Chandra Sekhar Rao (KCR) has clearly stated that TSRTC will not be merged with the government of
Telangana. The CM is not in the mood to involve in the talks with the union leaders or accept their
demands.
Oct 7th: Owing to the protests of the TSRTC workers, the Chief Minister announced in a press
conference, attended by the Road transport minister, P. Ajay, and the Managing Director Mr. Sunil
Sharma, the dismissal of 48,000 employees by calling the strike “illegal, irresponsible, and based on
wrong thinking”. They are considering the option of hiring new people to replace the dismissed
employees.
Also, a PIL was filed by a student of Osmania University in Telangana High Court stating that the strike
was illegal and was posing difficulty in commuting in the state. The court has directed the TSRTC
management to submit a report by Oct-10 on the steps to be taken to mitigate the issues of the public.
Oct 9th: The government has given temporary permission to the private operators to run as stage
carriers on several routes to cater to the demand of the festive season. The corporation is losing a lot
of revenue as it usually earned Rs. 10 Crore to 12 crore per day during the festive season, as mentioned
by one of the Senior Officials of the corporation.
Oct 10th: TSRTC workers take out a rally across from Phisal Bandha Crossroads to the Midhani Bus
Depot of the state. A sit-in is also organized there. Workers decide to approach Governor Tamilsai
Soundararajan and decide on a state-wide bandh.
Oct 11th: The High court was not satisfied with the report file by the TSRTC management and State
government pertaining to the mitigation of suffering of the people. It has directed the management
and also the RTC unions to file detailed counter affidavits in the PIL filed against the strike.
Oct 12th: A suicide of an employee was reported. He succumbed to injuries after self-immolating
himself. It was reported that the employee was disturbed by the happenings and the statements
regarding their mass-dismissal.
A review meeting was held by the CM with the Ministers and the senior officials of TSRTC. The CM has
instructed the Officials to restore the bus services, and for that to happen, he has directed them to
recruit employees and utilize the services of retired employees of RTC and Police department drivers.
It was decided that RTC should be running its own 5200 buses and recruit the employees accordingly.
The remaining are to be completely handed over to private people in a phased manner. The CM has
also announced that the salaries of employees and workers who attended the duties will be released.
He added that certain political parties are taking the advantage of the situation and are claiming
themselves to be union leaders, thus intensifying the stir. The security cover at all the RTC depots and
bus stands was asked to be increased. The DGP was also instructed to bookcases, arrest, and send
violators to court involved in any unlawful activity and violence. To avoid any inconvenience to
students until the buses are operating, the administration has extended the Dussehra holiday till
October 19. It was also suggested to educational institutions that they use the second Saturdays and
Sundays as working days to complete the curriculum. He assured the media that by October 21st, all
bus categories will be functioning, and students with bus passes would have no trouble using the
services.
Oct 14th: Support from the oppositions, student unions and other unions increase. Osmania
University students stage a program on the road supporting the strike. They raise slogans against the
KCR government and support the RTC strike. A 55-year-old driver of TSRTC succumbs to injuries after
setting himself ablaze. Protests and candle marches are taken out in different parts of the city blaming
the government for the death of the driver. Another 14-year service holding conductor of TSRTC
commits suicide.
Oct 15th: JAC of TSRTC approaches governor Tamilsai Soundararajan. They explain to her how the
government is not taking action on the report of the expert committee appointed in July 2018, how
the wage agreement entered on April 17th, 2019, has not been honoured, the dues payable to the
corporation by the government not given, and reported numbers of employees committing suicide
the past few days.
The High Court, while hearing the PIL directs the government to initiate talks with the employees and
also the employees to call off the strike and involve in talks to resolve the issue.
Oct 16th: The High court has passed orders on the petition filed by an employee of the TSRTC
regarding the non-payment of salaries for the month of September. TSRTC management has
submitted in the court that the delay was due to the strike and since the employees are not attending
the duties, it is posing a difficulty in adjusting the financials and disbursing the salaries. However, the
court directs the state-owned transport corporation to pay salaries for 49,190 employees by October
21st. The court has assured the employees that the salaries will be paid by Monday, 21st October.
Nov 2nd: The government has decided to privatize 50% of the buses being run on the routes. The
private buses will be run with 5100 buses. The chief minister has set a new deadline for the employees
to call off the strike and come back to work, that is, November 5th.
Nov 7th: A PIL was filed by Prof. P.L. Visweswara Rao, a civil activist and Vice – President of Telangana
Jana Samithi, with a plea to declare the privatization of bus services in the specified routes of the
TSRTC as illegal and unconstitutional as they are proceeding with it instead of having negotiations with
the trade unions to solve the issues.
Nov 8th: The Telangana High Court has passed an interim order directing the management and the
state government to hold the process of privatizing 5100 buses in TSRTC till 11th November.
Nov 10th: The court hears a sealed cover argument from the government. The CJ states that it was
violating the Sec 102 of Motor Vehicle Act as the government has not issued the notice to TSRTC
pertaining to the privatization of routes. Hence, the court has extended the stay on privatisation.
Nov 11th: The court comments that it cannot direct the government to hold the negotiations and it
cannot declare the strike by the employees to be illegal since they don’t come under the jurisdiction
of the High Court, but of the labour court, though public interest was involved.
Nov 13th: The disruption of the public’s day-to-day life reduces due to the steps taken by the
government. Several striking workers of the TSRTC who have not been receiving salary since
September resort to engaging themselves in caste-based jobs and other odd occupations.
Nov 20th: The JAC presents a single demand of getting inducted back into the duties to call off the
strike.
Nov 25th: Leaders of the JAC of TSRTC call off the 52-day-long strike. They request all temporary
workers to not join service starting 6 am on the 26th of November and direct all TSRTC employees to
resume duties then without assurance from the state government or the management. They also
comment that the calling off should not be seen as a loss and that fight for the merger shall continue
in other ways.
As Mr. Sunil Sharma thought about these events and the eventual plight of the workers, he wondered
if they were collectively misled by their kin or “royally” duped.
Here is a transcript from our conversation with Mr. Srinivas Rao.
I still am mixed up if anyone would ask me about how the strike turned out to be. And as a chess
puzzle, we saw different faces of our kin and partner at each phase, silently doubting all their moves.
TSRTC was not providing us with good benefits, we did not have salary hikes, and many vacancies in
the department added to our work pressure. The non-existent money at the end of the month for
most of us was yet another leading concern, and we wanted a way out of this daily misery. A good
way out for us at that moment was to listen to our kin, our trade union leaders. As convinced by them,
a fitting end to our concerns was to conduct a protest starting October 5th, 2019, demanding the
merging of our TSRTC with the government. And we sent proper notice to the government on this and
sat and talked to them in several meetings, only to be silenced and forgotten.
It has been since long that we suffered this fate. All meetings never led to the on-time publishing of
reports, and the statements by the IAS officers who led them never relieved us. TSRTC has been
undergoing losses for the past few years. A 10-member expert committee constituted in July 2018 has
not given solutions or recommendations on TSRTC’s sustainability. Enough is enough. We couldn’t
take it anymore.
It was not as if we were demanding things not promised before. We elected KCR. Our KCR gave us his
word during the formation of Telangana that the RTC would be merged with the government as told
by our TSRTC JAC-1 Telangana convenor K Hanumanth Mudiraj. As done in Andhra Pradesh, this move
would give us a sense of security; it would provide us with salary hikes that we hadn’t received since
2017 and ease the work pressure on us. Six thousand workers retired in recent years, and not a single
new staff has been recruited in their place! Obsolete buses were lying around and being forced to be
run; new buses were not even ordered after many assurances. Even the promised subsidies of nearly
Rs. 500 crores that the government owes the corporation were not distributed. And they go on to say
that the corporation is at a loss. How could it not be? Our voices were left unheard. Did our partner,
the KCR government, royally dupe us?
The strike started with support from all fronts. Even after the government asked us to join back by the
6th of October, they’d suspended us; we continued with our strike and got suspended. We conducted
sit-ins with our families in front of the bus depots. The opposition parties’ JAC supported our
movement – they led protests and boycotts in front of the chief minister’s office. Finally, we were
heard, or so we thought. But on the 7th of October, much to our dismay, KCR did the unimaginable. He
dismissed the 48000 of us and, on 9th October, went ahead to give private players temporary
permission to run. We continued with our strike as per our leader’s assurance. Many of us lost our
lives to suicide, most of us engaged in other professions to meet our familial needs, and in front of us,
the temporary workers were given a daily wage of Rs. 2000. To add pain to our misery, the government
decides to privatize 50% of the buses being run on routes and gave us a new deadline to end the strike
on the 5th of November. Our leaders, Mr. Ashwathama Reddy and convenor K Raji Reddy, started an
indefinite fast on November 16th. I can’t fathom the emotional turmoil we were going through. Are
our JAC leaders competent enough? Is the government this merciless? There were rumours going
around that our leaders were planted ones and they support the CM “closed doors”. We pleaded to
our leaders for a compromise. On the 20th of November, the 47th day of our strike, they presented a
demand to the government regarding calling off the strike on the condition that there was no issue of
joining unions – an order set by the KCR government. Finally, after 52 days of terror, we called off our
strike!
APPENDIX
1. Charter of Demands:
a. TSRTC should be merged in the state government
b. State government should take necessary measures to safeguard TSRTC.
c. 1% of the state government’s budget should be allocated to TSRTC. Losses from rural
services should be covered by the state government the same way it is doing for
metro, by allocating viability gap funds.
d. State government must bear the burden of increasing the cost of diesel.
e. Ensure Job security for drivers and conductors.
f. Salary hike due from 01-04-2017 should be given immediately.
g. Vacancies in all categories must be filled.
h. CCS, PF, SRBS, and SBT dues must be paid with interest
i. Kin of deceased employees should be given jobs. Supervisor-level jobs should be given
if candidates have the requisite qualifications.
j. Retired employees should be paid their settlement and salary for the period of “Sakala
Janula Samme”.
k. Interstate / Zone/ Region transfers must be done as a one-time measure.
l. Women employees must be given child care holidays like their counterparts in the
State Government.
m. Medical unfit and colour-blind crew should be given alternate employment.
Exemption taken from the government to not do so should be taken back.
n. Retired employees must be given a white ration card, Aarogya Sri card and Aasara
pension
o. Old buses should be scrapped. Hired buses should be removed. New buses should be
purchased.
p. FAME II scheme should be modified to let TSRTC receive the incentive and purchase
buses
q. Tarnaka hospital should be developed as a super specialty hospital. Medicines should
be supplied along with healthcare. Parents of employees should be given access to
the super specialty hospital.
r. Duties should be according to MTW act. Double wages to be paid for double duty.
s. Remaining contract and casual employees should be regularised along with those in
the paramedical and civil engineering departments.
t. Leave encashment and DA arrears should be paid. Uniforms must be supplied.
u. Buses should be operated according to the interstate agreement, and illicit operations
should be curbed.
v. TSRTC should be allowed to undertake goods, parcel, and courier business.
w. Supervisor positions should be reviewed based on staff ratio and openings must be
filled.
x. Reduce workload on carriage staff. Remove outsourcing in carriage and all other
departments.
y. Women conductors working in Hyderabad should be given duties that end before 9
pm.
z. Employees working in regulation 30 should be regularised from the date of their
joining.
2. A brief history of Telangana formation:
1948: Indian Army conducts Operation Polo. Nizam, the last ruler of the princely state of Hyderabad, accedes to
India.
Nov 1, 1956: Telangana merged with Andhra State, which was carved out of Madras State.
1969: ‘Jai Telangana’ movement for separate statehood to Telangana began. Over 300 people killed in police
firing.
1975: Presidential order issued to implement Six Point Formula, providing some safeguards to Telangana.
2001: K. Chandrasekhara Rao floated Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to revive Telangana movement.
Sep 2: Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy died in helicopter crash, triggering political uncertainty.
Oct 2009: Chandrasekhara Rao began fast—unto—death for Telangana state.
Dec 9: Centre announced decision to initiate the process for formation of Telangana state.
Dec 23: Following protests in Rayalaseema and Andhra regions (Seemandhra) and En mass resignations of MPs
and state legislators, centre put the process on hold citing need for consensus.
Feb 3, 2010: Centre set up five—member Sri Krishna committee to look into Telangana issue.
Dec 2010: Sri Krishna committee submitted its report, suggested six options
July 30, 2013: UPA coordination panel and Congress Working Committee decided to carve out Telangana state.
Protests in Seemandhra.
Oct 3, 2013: Union cabinet approved the proposal to divide Andhra Pradesh.
Oct 25, 2013: Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy raised banner of revolt against Congress leadership. He wrote
letters to president and prime minister urging them to stop bifurcation process.
Dec 5, 2013: Union cabinet approved draft Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill 2013 prepared on the basis of
recommendations by the GoM.
Dec 9: The President gave time till Jan 23 to the state legislature to give its views.
Dec 12, 2013: Bill brought to Hyderabad in a special aircraft and amid tight security.
Dec 16, 2013: Bill introduced in both houses of state legislature amid clashes between Seemandhra and
Telangana lawmakers.
Jan 8, 2014: After disruptions for several days, debate finally began on the bill in assembly and council.
Jan 21, 2014: State government sought four more weeks to debate the bill. The President gave one week.
Jan 27, 2014: Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy gave notice to assembly speaker for a resolution to reject the
bill.
Jan 30, 2014: Amid ruckus, both houses of state legislature passed by a voice vote official resolutions, rejecting
the bill and appealing to the President not to send the bill to parliament.
Feb 7, 2014: Union cabinet cleared the bill and rejected Seemandhra leaders’ demand to make Hyderabad a
union territory. Bill sent to the President for his approval to table it in parliament.
Feb 18, 2014: Lok Sabha passes Telangana bill in a closed house session with no media personnel present and
live telecast stopped.
CASE ANALYSIS
The Chief Minister remained adamant about not negotiating with the unions regarding their demands,
despite the fact that the employee unions had endorsed him during the statehood movement. While
the unions had announced the upcoming strike ten days prior to Dussehra, the Government failed to
take it seriously, believing that they could not be threatened. As a reprimand of sorts, the government
held back the salaries of the employees for the month of September. Later, due to shortage of staff
during the strikes, the government had to hire temporary drivers. The Dussehra holidays were also
prolonged to ease the lives of students. These measures would have been avoided had the
government taken precautionary actions against such a possibility.
A PIL (Public Interest Litigation) was filed by a civil rights activist at the High Court hoping for some
mediation by the Court. At first, the Court instructed the government to discuss and negotiate matters
with the corporation. Further, the Court communicated its unhappiness about the inconsistencies in
the information provided by the Government. The Court also directed the corporation to pay the
employees’ salaries that were held back for the month of September. The two stakeholder parties of
the situation are the government as well as the management on one side, while the employees and
their unions are on the opposing side. While the government felt slighted due to the ungrateful
behaviour from the employees after the salary hike, they received due to the creation of Telangana,
the employees were maybe misled and charged by the union leaders to go with the movement of the
leaders. The governments hands were also tied because they faced financial constraints and giving
into the demands of the unions could cause similar demands from other government sectors. The
attitude of the chief minister could have potentially painted him in a bad light and made him seem
like he was not listening to the people he ruled over. But it could also be interpreted as him being
strong willed and not easily swayed or influenced even under pressure, something he had already
displayed during the creation of the separate state. The chief minister was also successful in putting
the opposition parties at check. When BJP, one of the major oppositions in the state opposed KCR and
his policies, he questioned their motives behind opposing privatisation in the state and promoting it
with their governments policies at the centre. Similarly, he questioned the stand of congress party
with regards to the corporations' financials as they were his immediate predecessors in the
government for over 10 years.
The employees were the worst off in the situation as they lost money, credibility, reliability and some
even lost their lives. With the employees agreeing to the demands of the government, the union also
lost out on their leverage and bidding power. The power dynamics of the situation was very
disproportionate as the government and state had a lot more leverage and popularity than the TSRTC,
who lost the public sympathy.
One must not forget a major reason behind the demand of the merger. In Andhra Pradesh, the chief
minister Jagan Mohan Reddy acted on his poll promise to the RTC employees and merged it with the
government. This decision drove TSRTC employees to come up with their demands. Upon observing
some specifics of the state bifurcation, we can understand the stark contrast between the two states
in terms of public knowledge of governments actions and the financial health of the state. We can
observe that one of the major reasons the movement for a separate state took place is because of the
negligence of the rulers with regards to Telangana region and its people. The people here fail to
understand how adversely a strike could affect them. As pointed out earlier, they are the ones facing
the worst of all conditions. They need to understand that no Trade Union can protect and feed them
like how the government and the corporation does. As far as public perception is concerned, they are
the worsely affected ones there too. We feel they should have resorted to other methods of
expressing their discontent other than causing disturbance to public life.
The role of the unions and the leaders is to be discussed upon. We need to investigate further to
understand if the leaders were indeed “planted” ones. Putting this assumption aside for a while, we
can understand that the trade unions failed miserably to utilise the leverage they had on the
government. They failed to interpret the management's actions and also have underestimated them.
They did not consider for a second the chance that their strike might be a failure or that the
government was capable enough to divide them. This resulted in the workers getting affected.
All in all, it is a classic case of “draw a bigger line to make one shorter” kind of situation. The
government was successful in maintaining the positive view of the public which generally does not
happen in these types of situations. Its next actions should be to retain whatever image it has lost.
This could be done by re-instating the employees. However, the management would want them to
stay away from the unions so as not to repeat such incidents in the future. If the government and the
management pull this off, it can rightly be called a complete win for them.