RCH sanitation workers to hold demonstration on Saturday

CHENNAI: The Government Sanitary Workers Association in Tamil Nadu working at Primary Health Centres (PHC) under Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) scheme to undertake an attention grabbing protest on Saturday, April 15 at 09 am demanding regular daily wages.

The sanitation workers say that they have a remuneration of Rs 1,500 and that is only upon 7 years of service or 10 deliveries per month.

They carry out all the cleaning procedures post delivery as told by the doctors. As many as 3,140 sanitation workers were appointed at the rate of two per station to assist the nurses and cleaning purposes in 2015. The workers say that they work 12 hours a day and do not have any kind of government holidays like weekly leave, festival leave, or sick leave.

In 2010, ordinance no. 385 ordered the department to appoint sanitary workers on daily wage basis but it has not been made permanent. As per a GO by the state health department, they can be given daily wage as determined by the respective District Collectors, but till date no daily wage fixation has been done for them.

"As per Tamil Nadu Government's Minimum Wage Fixation Act, they are not given daily wages. The recruitment of cleaning staff in the vacant posts needs to be done on recommendation basis. Most of the cleaning workers living on minimum wages are women living below the poverty line especially from the Scheduled Tribes and they need better wages," said Dr G R Ravindranath secretary of Doctor's Association for Social Equality.

They demand periodic wages and the payment of arrears of wages to the cleaning staff from 05 April, 2017 and request that they should be given 8 hours work instead of 12 hours work. The association demands maternity and medical leave, along with free uniform to the workers at their work places. One of the key demands is to provide adequate compensation to the families of RCH sanitation workers who died on duty.