KLE Nurses’ Strike

For about 2 months now, about 600 nurses belonging to the 2000 bedded KLE Hospital, Belgaum (North Karnataka) have been on strike demanding increase in wages and provision of basic social security. This is a problem that KLE hospital nurses have been facing for a very very long time now. Because of the failure to unionise the nurses and other staff at KLE (or any other hospital in India for that matter) by the Central Trade Unions, the Hospital management have been able to super exploit their nurses.

A Life of Despair

For instance, the wages for a beginner starts at about Rs. 6000 -7000, but even after 5 years of service their pay scale only increases to about Rs. 12,000, which is totally dependent on the whims of the management. This means the nurses have to remain completely subservient to the management in order to increase their wages. The nurses are not provided any form of social security nor are they covered under a proper health coverage/ health-care which is very vital as they are highly prone to infections. The concept of annual leave and job security are non existent. Hostel facility is not provided for the male nurses and women’s hostel is very badly maintained.

Apart from this, the nurses have to constantly endure harassment and intimidation by the management and the doctors. The nurse-patient ratio remains extremely high at 1:30 at the ward and 1:6 at the ICU, whereas the actual ratio should be around 1:6 in the general ward and 1:1 in the ICU. This puts not only the patients at risk, but leaves the nurse totally exhausted and stressed out.

The efforts to unionise the nurses at KLE started a few months back and the management immediately took action against the main leaders behind the unionisation drive and illegally transferred them to another unit of the same hospital. While the leaders refused to go, the management threatened the other nurses with termination notices if they tried to register themselves as a union.

Having exhausted all other options, about 600 nurses started a dharna (agitation) from 13th October onwards during their non duty hours and from 2nd November all these nurses have been on a 24/7 indefinite strike. The strike is currently led by the CITU, whereas the actual process of unionisation of KLE nurses was totally self-driven by the nurses themselves.

The nurses had to approach CITU as the management threatened them with legal action as the KLE nurses union was still unregistered. The Indian Labour law, among its several loopholes, requires that the workers register themselves (which remains a very cumbersome and a bureaucratic process). Otherwise the workers face the possibility of legal action by the management and the labour department would remain completely out of reach to the workers. Also in most cases, the management remains hand in glove with the labour department as was the case in this instance as well.

KLE Hospital earns a profit of Rs. 140 crores! Nurses earn less than Rs 1.4 lakhs!

KLE group of institutions, which is registered as a “trust”, has been exploiting its “trust” status by availing themselves of tax benefits and at the same time profiting themselves as any other corporate hospital. The current chairman of KLE – Dr. Prabhakar Kore is also a Rajya Sabha MP (BJP) and is very influential person within the corrupt and communal BJP led State Government in Karnataka. All financial transaction within KLE is completely hidden from public view and no one really knows who is actually gobbling up all the profits. According to a nurse who spoke to the New Socialist Alternative, the KLE Hospital management announced in August that they would be sharing 1% of their quarterly profits i.e., Rs. 35 lakhs with the nurses and other hospital staff. This can only mean that KLE group of Hospitals has a quarterly profit of Rs. 35 crores (Rs. 350 million) and yearly profit amounting to nearly Rs. 140 crores!

All the attempts at negotiating with the management have been a failure as the hospital management simply refuses to recognize the KLE Hospitals Employees Union (that is spearheading the strike) and also refuses to increase the basic pay as per the demands of the union. Apart from this, the hospital has been flexing its muscle by trying to create a division with the nurses and threatening to throw out all the women nurses from their hostel. They have also used their political power by bringing out a government order stating that the strike is illegal. Currently, this matter is in the High Court. The Memorandum of demands submitted by the KLE nurses to the Labour department is also currently under review by the labour court.

United mass action of the Working Class is need of the hour!

The New Socialist Alternative (CWI-India) is in complete solidarity with all the demands of the KLE Hospital Employees Union. In addition, we demand that the books of the hospital managements be opened to calculate the commensurate wages according to the wind fall of profits they grab.

It is imperative that Central Trade Unions like CITU and AITUC not restrict its intervention to merely KLE hospital, but move forward in unionising all the health-care workers in Belgaum and other parts of Karnataka. An immediate mass mobilization of all workers in Belgaum and beyond is urgently needed to rally their support to the beleaguered KLE Hospital nurses and put pressure on the KLE Hospital management to meet all their demands.

But this in itself is not enough. All this must be accompanied by democratization of the unions extending to the very top. And in the case of the nurses, the leadership of the unions must be led by women nurses as they form the overwhelming majority. Trade Union Federations must mobilize for a industry/ trade wide unions on a town/ city, state and national basis strictly run on grass roots democracy, which will be enormously effective in fighting for better wages and conditions and prepare the workers for the coming period against capitalism which is a crisis ridden system.

For more videos of the KLE Nurses Strike, click here