Ludhiana civil hospital employees protest at DC office, demand salary hike
The workers demanded identity cards from the health department. They also demanded paid sick leaves without any deductions.
Employees of the civil hospital, who fall under the ‘user charges’ category, staged a protest at the deputy commissioner’s office complex here on Monday to demand salaries keeping in view the equal-work-equal-pay rule. ‘User charges’ employees are workers directly hired by the hospital authorities to address the staff shortage issue and are paid directly by the hospital from the earnings collected from the services at the facility.
The salaries for the user charges employees range between ₹4,500 and ₹6,500. “We have been working at this meagre wage for the past several years. We can not even make our ends meet with this paltry sum,” said Raj Kumar, president, User Charges Mulazim Sangharsh Committee.
The user charges, Raj Kumar said, are part-time workers who are supposed to work in four-hour shifts. But he claimed that they were being made to work as much as the regular employees and still being paid the same. “We should be paid according to the work taken from us,” he said.
The workers demanded identity cards from the health department. They also demanded paid sick leaves without any deductions. “We also fall sick. They deduct our salaries. We should get some sick leaves so that we aren’t forced to work even when we don’t feel well,” he said.
User charges, accompanied by contractual workers, make for 70% of the staff at the hospital. Around 100 positions of medical workers lay vacant at the hospital. This, the workers claimed, brought the entire burden on them in exchange of a salary that barely meets their needs.
The agitated workers have submitted a letter with their demands to additional deputy commissioner (ADC) Amarjit Singh Bains. The workers warned of strike if their demands were not accepted in 10 days. Committee president Raj Kumar also warned of going on a hunger strike in case the demands were not met.
Senior medical officer (SMO) Dr Harpreet Singh said, “They were hired in 2014 long before I joined. At that time, the bed strength had increased and there was shortage of staff. I don’t exactly know what their terms were, but there is no rule for a four-hour shift. We will pay them in accordance with the norms.”
“They have signed affidavits on the terms of their jobs and the honorariums they get,” he added.