Thiruvananthapuram, Thursday, February 09, 2012: CPM in Kerala has decided to support the agitation by nurses in private hospitals demanding proper wages and service conditions.

A resolution adopted by the party’s state meet said nurses and non-medical employees in private hospitals were “victims of severe exploitation” in Kerala and other parts of the country.

The resolution, released to the media by CPM polit bureau member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, said the problem was all the more important since women accounted for 95 per cent of nurses in the state.

“Paramedics and non-medical employees in hospitals are an unorganised workforce and they are facing naked negation of wages and service conditions enjoyed by the orgnaised sectors,” it said.

There were a large number of cases where nurses work for upto 14 hours a day for 28 days in a month. The Minimum Wages Act for them brought in by the previous LDF government had been implemented only in 24 hospitals in the state.

They were also being harassed by conditions of bond imposed on them while giving jobs, which came in the way of them going abroad where better job prospects await them.
It was against this background that nurses had begun to come out in protest from many hospitals in the state.

The party meet also adopted a resolution pledging support to the all-India general strike called by the central trade unions on February 28.

This was for the first time in recent times that all major trade unions including CITU, AITUC, INTUC, BMS and HMS had joined hands to protest the “neoliberal” policies of the central government, it said.

(News agency)