Activists of the district committee of the United Nurses Association (UNA) were in the midst of a dharna outside the civil station here on Thursday evening when the news broke that their 21-day strike had borne fruit.
Loud cheers and strong slogans saluting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and UNA State leaders soon reverberated the air. The joy of over thousand nurses working in various private hospitals across the district, who had gathered there, knew no bounds. They soon took out a march to celebrate their happiness.
Mini Bobby, district secretary, UNA, had this to say: “Finally, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Over 20 days of our struggle has yielded some results now.”
Asked if they expect any retaliatory action from hospital managements, Ms. Bobby replied in the negative. “Except a few, most of the managements have been empathetic to our demands. We don’t expect any revengeful tactic,” she added.
Earlier in the day, the UNA activists had to brave intermittent rain and sunshine while staging the day-long dharna. “Even a migrant casual labourer gets ₹800 a day as wages, why do we get only ₹300” was one of the questions foremost in their slogans. “This strike is not to trouble any one. This is for our survival,” Ms. Bobby had said.