Nurses start strike in Thrissur

Thrissur: The nurses in the private hospitals in the district launched an indefinite strike demanding the payment of Rs 1,000 a day instead of the present Rs 300. Over 5, 000 nurses took out a protest march from Thrissur town to the collectorate and 30 hospitals in the district were affected. Most of the hospitals stopped taking in-patients. They will admit only emergency cases. The United Nurses Association, which has organised the strike, has given the list of nurses who will attend emergency cases. The listed nurses reported for duty on Monday.
"We are ready to give more nurses to attend emergency cases, if necessary," Mr Jasmin Shah, state president of UNA, told DC.

Mr Shah, who held a meeting with Agriculture Minister V.S. Sunil Kumar and district collector A Kowsigan, told mediapersons that the minister had requested the UNA to withdraw the strike till June 27 when the minimum wages commission will hold a discussion on the matter with hospital managements. "UNA's state committee meeting will be held on Tuesday to decide the further course of action," Mr Shah said. UNA functionaries said that they had been demanding the implementation of the Balaraman and Veerakumar committee reports which have recommended a hike in wages. There was also an SC order asking the managements to increase the wages.

"When we came up with a statewide strike in 2013, the authorities had asked us to wait till January 1, 2016. As per the labour law, an increment is a mandatory in three years," they said. In 158 hospitals across the state, notices for the indefinite strike had been handed over to the managements and in the remaining ones it was done on Monday. If the talks with the commission fail, there will be a statewide indefinite strike, they added.