An alarming incident unfolded as three sanitation workers shaved their heads in protest, while their colleagues staged a mock funeral procession for an effigy of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. This event has drawn attention to the appalling working conditions faced by sanitation staff in hospitals run by the Delhi government. After a 10-day strike at Burari Hospital in January 2024, Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj has promised to address the grievances of the protesting workers.
The recent strike was instigated by alleged threats encountered by the workers when they requested their supervisors at Global Ventures, a contracting company responsible for sanitation at the hospital, to ensure timely payment of their wages. Despite their demonstration, their salaries were only disbursed on January 19, 2024, well beyond the prescribed deadline. As per the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, salaries for the preceding month should be paid by the 7th or 10th of each subsequent month.
According to one of the trade union leaders, this is not a single instance where they had to struggle to get their wages. All the sanitation staff at the hospital have been hired by the contract firm and should get a minimum of a little over Rs 17,000 per month as salary. However, workers complained that their salaries were abruptly cut by the contract firm almost every month.
Sanitation workers who are women, allegedly, have to constantly face abuses. They are asked for sexual favors very often and told by the company staff that if they do not heed to their demands, they will lose work. Curiously, the hospital didn’t have the mandatory Internal Complaints Committee that looks into allegations of sexual harassment at the workplace. The FIRs and a letter by some women’s organisations to the medical director of the hospital forced the hospital management to hastily put together an ICC unit in December 2023.
A majority of these workers belong to the Dalit Valmiki community. Their living standards are low and they have historically been pushed down in the socio-economic ladder as ‘outcastes’ meant to do only sanitation work. “Often these workers have to face casteist slurs by their employers,” Maya John, a Delhi University professor said.
The workers’ demonstrations both at the hospital site and the chief minister’s residence were met with police action. The police lathicharged some of the striking workers and detained them, but they were later released.
Delhi government labour minister Gopal Rai had acknowledged the hire-and-fire practice among contracting firms. He passed an order that even when the government bodies hire new firms, it is mandatory to retain 80% of the contract workers. However, Gatuam, trade union leader, said that the rule is rarely implemented, and that the problem lies in the whole contract system itself where the workers have no say at all.
The protesting workers called off the last round of demonstration at the Burari Hospital on January 25, when Delhi’s health minister met a delegation of workers and, following a high-level committee meeting, assured them that their problems will be addressed. However, both the hospital management and the contracting firm Global Ventures haven’t issued any clarification from their side.
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