Strike over, staff take it easy

Mumbai: Although Best unions have called off the strike, almost 60 per cent of employees did not turn up for work even after services resumed on Monday evening. The strike was called off at approximately 4.30 pm on Monday but officials said it would take time for services to regulate. It was almost after two hours after the strike was withdrawn that the services resumed. An official said, “Workers will come in from the suburbs in or around which they reside, after which the buses will go to the CNG stations and then make their way to their respective routes.”

The first signs of the strike were seen at Dindoshi depot at around 6 pm on Sunday. Depot workers had refused to fill CNG in the buses and sat outside the depot with protest banners in a show of strength.

If the number of employees working remains the same as on Monday, the delay might be seen on Tuesday morning as well. “Since work was completely suspended during the strike, it will take us time to make up for it. There might be a slight adjustment period on Tuesday morning as well but hopefully services will be normalised as soon as possible.” Due to unavailability of workers in the power division, power failure complaints could not be addressed efficiently.

Co-incidentally the BEST had announced that it would be running extra 212 services on Raksha Bandhan, which also marked the undertaking’s 70th anniversary.