NCRI Staff
NCRI – The guild protest of the railroad workers in the Dorood region in the province of Lorestan (western Iran), which started 10 days ago, continued on Tuesday January 30.
According to the state-run ILNA news agency on January 30, one of the railroad workers announced the news on the gathering of the workers and said: “We are about 150 rail workers who have been working in Dorood region under the responsibility of Travers Company with high record of working years.”
According to him, the Traverse Company as the employer has not paid the workers wage arrears including three months of unpaid salary and four months insurance premium under the pretext of financial problems. For this reason, workers have stopped working in the maintenance of the lines 10 days ago and have gathered at their workplace to follow their legitimate demands.
“The workers want to determine the status of their outstanding claims payment. Until now, the district directors of Dorood in Lorestan province have not given a clear answer to our demands,” the worker said.
According to him, the current management of Travers, with irregular payment of wages and premiums for about 7,000 workers in the railroad districts of the country, has created problems for their families leaving them at a disadvantage.
“Beside the railroad workers of Dorood district, our colleagues in other province have also regularly stage protest against non-payment of their wages,” he said.
“Apart from the delay in paying the workers’ wages and insurance premium,” the railways worker said adding, “the employer deducts a monthly payment from the worker’s salary for supplementary insurance, but we do not benefit from the supplementary insurance because the employer did not deposit the supplementary payment into the insurance company’s account.”
According to him, in the past months, a large number of Travers employees with long work records have been laid off by the employer under the pretext of reducing the current expenses.
Travers is subsidiary of the National Railroad Company that manages railway line maintenance.