The 94-day agitation of the daily-wage employees in various government departments of Karnataka took a sudden turn on 22 June 2005 when the workers went on a mass hunger strike demanding regularisation of their service.  The striking employees, who included women, had taken out a procession to the Deputy Commissioner's office and presented a memorandum before starting their indefinite hunger strike. The strike was called by the Karnataka State Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Government and Quasi-government Daily Wage Employees' Association.

 

On 20 June 2005, the union had called a press conference to announce the hunger strike. According to the press statement issued then, the workers decided to organise the hunger strike due to the “indifferent attitude” of the government towards the demands of the daily-wage employees. In spite of the fact that the workers were on strike for the last 93 days, the government, other than giving assurances, did not come forward with any concrete suggestions. Before taking the decision for a hunger strike, the union had set 20 June 2005 as the deadline for the state government to concede their demand for regularisation of their service failing which, they would be forced to begin a fast-unto death agitation from the next day. The striking workers made it clear that the hunger strike will continue till the government took a positive decision on the problems pertaining to the daily wage employees.

 

In Karnataka, around 25,000 people are working as daily-wage employees in various departments of the government. In 1994, the state government had agreed to regularise all the daily-wage employees appointed after 1984. The assurance was given by the then Chief Minister S M Krishna. A memorandum circulated by the unions point out that even after many years, the decision has not been implemented. At the same time, the government had regularised the engineers working on daily wages, but dropped its plan of regularising the services of employees in other categories.

 

The agitating workers urged the government to give weightage to daily-wage employees at the time of filling backlog vacancies of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.  In the memorandum submitted to the Deputy Commissioner, they demanded that the government stop retrenchment of daily-wage employees in the public works, forest, sericulture, irrigation and zilla panchayat engineering departments. The protestors also wanted the government to end the practice of officials using the services of daily-wage employees for personal work at their homes.