With the cancellation of special casual leave for the government employees to attend programmes of their union, there was a strong resentment among different trade union bodies mainly affiliated by different opposition political parties.
"It has been decided not to grant any special casual leave," a recent circular issued by Finance Department said replying to the General Secretary of West Bengal Work Assistant's Association.
"State Government employees won't be granted leave on these days," said the notification, signed by Chief Secretary, Sanjay Mitra.
The association under CPI(M) affiliated Coordination Committee of the state government employees union, which requested for such leaves to attend their union programmes.
Similar message have also been sent to the bodies like Congress affiliated INTUC.
"Despite having a provision for special casual leave in the West Bengal Service Rule 1980, this has been done forcibly depriving the government employees of their legitimate TU rights. The service rule has also not been changed for the purpose," Mitra said.
The Coordination Committee Secretary Ananta Banerjee also criticised the circular saying that the TU rights of the government employees had been curbed.
Leaders of both the INTUC and Coordination Committee described it as 'discriminatory', while alleged that the ruling party affiliated TUs had been granted special casual leaves for their TU programmes earlier.
The state government also issued a notification earlier on February 18 stating that all State Government offices should remain open and all government employees should report for duty on the days of strike.
West Bengal government earlier banned trade union activities within the premises of the relocated state secretariat 'Nabanna'.
