On Dec 17th nearly 2.75 lakh  part time employees of the All India Postal Service, known as Gramin Dak Service (GDS), went on an indefinite  strike. They were demanding the cancellation of the retrograde recommendations of the committee appointed by the Govt to look into their service conditions and regularization of their employment. These GDS employees who are employed for 4-5 hours daily and mostly in the rural areas, do the important jobs  such as delivery of letters, selling of  postage stamps and other stationary, etc. They constitute a full 50% of the total 5.5 lakh employees of the All India Postal Department. However these GDS employees do not have any security of employment or other benefits such as PF, pension etc. They are paid a fixed amount of salary proportionate to the number of hours worked.

Seeing the united action of the GDS employees the Government assured them that they will constitute another committee to look into their grievances following which the strike was called off after three days.

However, the permanent employees are launching an indefinite strike from 20th January 2009, under the leadership of National Federation of Postal Employees. These employees are demanding the regularization of the GDS employees and filling of the huge number of vacancies that exist in the Department of Posts. They are opposing the recommendations of the Screening Committee appointed by the Central   Government as per which only 1/3rd of the vacancies in Government Departments are to be filled and 2/3rd are to kept vacant.

People's Voice fully supports the just demands of the Postal Employees.