Who running staffs are and what they demand

Around 2,000 running staff of Bangladesh Railway (BR) operate over 350 trains in the country. Of them, 1,177 are locomotive masters (LMs) and assistant locomotive masters (ALMs).

All these staff get extra-hour-running benefit, known as mileage allowance or running allowance after 100 kilometres of train operation, which is equivalent to their one-day basic payment.

Other running staff are guards and travelling ticket examiners (TTEs).

Some other staff, including line electricians, feeder attendant, switchboard attendant, and refrigerator mechanics, work on running trains. But they are not officially included as running staff, who have been enjoying running allowance since 1931 when electricity in trains were not introduced.

The British-era rule was later absorbed in the Bangladesh Railway Establishment Code 1972 for BR employees. LMs start their job with a salary of Tk 9,000 under grade 17 with allowances, including pension benefits based on the extra work, house rent, and medical allowance enjoyed till 2021.

The AL government stopped the pension benefit based on the extra work, which led the running staff to go on strike for the first time in April 2022. Though BR later agreed to accept their demand for pension benefit, the order issued in 2021 was not withdrawn by the Ministry of Finance.

Meanwhile, BR hired nearly 300 ALMs in 2022 without the provision of pension benefit and running allowance.

Failing to get their dues, the running staff stopped working extra hours after giving a 15-day deadline to the authorities concerned on December 1, leading to the halt of a number of train operations for almost a week.

According to the service rule, the running staff on normal routes will get 12 hours of rest after working on a long route and eight hours of rest after working on short-distance trains for eight hours.

The duty period in the code has been fixed at eight hours though the running staff claim they work 12-13 hours daily on average.