Hundreds of contract employees working in state-run hospitals held protests demanding "equal pay for equal work" across Telangana on Tuesday, June 15. Contract employees include sanitation workers, patient care staff and security staff, who have also been at the forefront in battling the coronavirus. The staff protested for an hour outside their respective hospital premises and wore black badges, as per reports.
The contract employees say that, despite Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s promise of increasing their salary, this has not been implemented so far. They demand that the salary be increased soon, failing which, the workers said that they will go on strike and would be forced to boycott their duties. As per a Deccan Chronicle report, the employees’ current salary is Rs 9,400 per month. Last year, they had staged a protest with the same demand of increasing their wages, following which the state government had promised to do so. However, this has not yet been implemented, they lament.
Lakshmi Bai, a sanitation worker at the Osmania General Hospital, speaking to Deccan Chronicle, said, “How can we live with such meagre salaries, though we are the backbone of hospitals? State government should consider our case and fulfil our long-standing demand.”
According to Telangana Medical Contract Employees and Workers Union, many sanitation, patient care and security staff members have been working at hospitals for over 15 years, and have been earning meagre wages for all these years. However, in the past year, their workload and pressure increased significantly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On May 6, ASHA workers held a unique online protest by taking photos outside their health centres and alleging that they were not provided N95 masks, gloves and sanitisers for protection against the novel coronavirus. They allege that, though they are made to carry out various tasks like health surveys in villages, conduct coronavirus tests and take care of COVID-19 patients, they have not received basic protective equipment like masks and gloves from the government.