Nearly 200 workers — staff nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, medical record maintainers, nursing orderlies and others — employed in ESIC Medical College and Hospital in Kalaburagi refused to work on Wednesday in protest against the non-payment of wages and violations of labour laws.
They staged a demonstration outside the hospital building raising slogans against the anti-labour attitude of the authorities and Shree Udyog Enterprises, the manpower agency through which they are employed.
Though Prashant Paunipagar, dean of the institution, met the agitating workers and asked them to call off the strike promising them resolution of their issues, the employees refused to budge.
“The contract labour are being inhumanely treated. We are denied casual leaves, wage increments and other statutory benefits that we are entitled to. We are completely dependent on wages but we are not paid for the last two months. How can we manage our families without wages? The dean and other higher-ups in the establishment are insensitive to our sufferings and are not paying any attention to our woes. We are left with no option but to go on strike to press for our legitimate demands,” Shukla, an agitating staff nurse, told The Hindu. She added that contract labour are looked down upon and treated as second-grade citizens in the hospital.
The agitating workers also alleged that the dean had made an attempt to break the unity of the workers with threats of calling the police and service termination if they were to refuse to call off the strike.
However, acknowledging the genuine issues of the workers, the hospital authorities said that they were working hard to address the problems. They held Shree Udyog Enterprises, the contractor who supplied manpower to the institution, responsible for the problem.
“As per the terms and conditions of the contract, the contractor should first pay wages to workers he supplied to the institution and later claim reimbursement. For the last three-four months, the agency is directly claiming payments without paying workers,” Y.V. Pratap, Deputy Director (Finance), said.
A. Ranga Gopal, cash branch officer, said that the problem of pending wages cropped up after the biometric attendance system was introduced in January this year as per directions from higher-ups.
“The comparison of manual attendance and biometric attendance revealed some discrepancies. We are verifying it. Keeping the workers interest in mind, we are thinking of considering the manual attendance register and make payments for the last two months, though the contractor doesn’t pay first as per the contract terms. But, there are good chances that we pay the money to the contractor and he, without paying it to the workers, in turn, may run away with it. We are, therefore, making some proper arrangements to ensure that the contractor does pay the workers on the same day he received money from us because, we cannot directly pay the workers as per the rules,” Mr. Gopal said.
Fed up with the repeated violations of contract terms by the agency, the officers said, they have decided to terminate the contract and blacklist the manpower supplying agency.
“Fresh tenders for supplying manpower is already floated. By blacklisting this agency, we will ensure that it would not participate in the bid again,” Mr. Pratap said. The officers expressed the confidence that they would resolve the problem within a day or two.