16-hour BEST strike hits city hard, Sena chief intervenes

The strike by the 36,000-strong staff of Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking, including 24,000 drivers and conductors, that lasted for 16 hours, was withdrawn on Monday afternoon by the various unions after the intervention of Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray.

The meeting with Thackeray not only ended the strike, but gave a boost to the suggestion of merging the budget of BEST with that of the BMC.

Throughout the day, none of the buses from the fleet of 3,700 were on the road or at bus stops outside railway stations. The 27 bus depots across Mumbai were jam packed with parked buses, and drivers and conductors were nowhere to be seen. "We incurred losses of Rs 4 crore due to the strike," said a BEST official.

In fact, there were four incidents of minor violence on Sunday night, at Vikhroli, JVLR, Mira Road and Saki Naka, where stones were thrown, damaging bus window shields.

The meeting at Matoshree taken up by Thackeray with union leaders and the BEST administration changed things, and by 4 pm, the strike was called off. Unions wanted that there should not be inconsistency in dates while disbursing salaries, and that the BMC ensures the financial health of BEST Undertaking is taken care of, and getting buses on wet lease should be stopped.

Sources said the unions had demanded that the BMC give its assurance in writing to fulfil their demands, but no written assurance was given. "Uddhav Thackeray assured on camera that they will ensure salaries by the 10th of every month. He also promised that the budgets of BEST and BMC will be merged," said Shashank Rao, President, BEST Workers Union.

This comes at a time when BEST showed losses to the tune of Rs 590 crore, and they have to repay loans of nearly Rs 2,000 crore.

The employees were not happy as the union leaders and the Sena chief spoke about the merger of budget and the two organisations, but there was no mention about the parity in salaries. BEST employees claimed that BMC employees have a higher pay grade compared to them.

The idea of merging the two budgets was first mooted in March this year, when for the first time, the issue of salary payment getting delayed first came about.

The employees got their February salaries after almost 20 days. The BEST administration has its own budget for nearly 112 years, and since March, they are studying the possibilities of the merger — legally, financially, operation-wise. When BEST was first formed in 1905, the Committee members had the power to decide bus fares and electricity tariffs, but these are decided by other regulatory bodies now.

Their plans of getting 1,250 buses on wet lease, whereby they will be saving Rs 100 crore annually, has been kept on hold by the BEST committee comprising various political parties. No capital investment will be needed for this.

"We will have a separate meeting on getting buses on wet lease later, and we still oppose the idea. Today, two most important items of salaries and budget merger were accepted," said Suhas Samant, leader, BEST Kamgar Sena.

At the end of the day, barely 5-7 per cent of the total fleet — barely 200 buses — became operational after the strike was called off. Sources said there are very few staff members on 8-hour duty in the evening, and so it is difficult to run all 480 bus routes efficiently.