BENGALURU: Anganwadi workers, helpers, midday meal workers and ASHA workers called off their strike ahead of a meeting with the Union ministers from the state to be held in New Delhi on Wednesday.
S Varalakhmi, who led the protest across the state, told TNIE that Union ministers HD Kumaraswamy and Pralhad Joshi had requested them to call off the strike and come for talks to Delhi.
She said, “Nothing has been promised yet but we will be heading to Delhi to place our demands and seek a deadline to fulfill the demands.”
On Monday, leaders representing anganwadi and midday meal workers had given a call for indefinite strike against the central government for not including them under the four new labour codes, regularisation of their jobs, increment in their salaries and not providing them facilities like ESI and Provident Fund.
The strike had begun on December 1 at Freedom Park and was supposed to go on for 10 days.
The Centre has identified 29 labour laws comprehensively into four labour codes including wages, industrial relations, social security, Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and working conditions.
Indira Bai (45), an anganwadi worker in Chincholi, earns a salary of Rs 12,000 per month. She said, “For two days (Monday and Tuesday), the anganwadi services and midday services were impacted across the state. We want the central government to fulfill our demands and regularise our jobs.”
Lakshmi (48), a midday meal worker from Kalaburagi, said, “I am paid Rs 4,700 salary which is low and it has been the same since 2009. What can we buy for a salary as low as this one when the prices of all the commodities in the market have increased? We want the central government to increase our salaries and pay us the minimum wages as per the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and consider us as the government employees and not scheme workers.”
These workers have also urged the central government to recognise their working hours at anganwadis, schools and health centres from four to six hours. “Though the government officially states that we must work for four hours in a day, we are there for more than six hours. This has to be put down on paper by the government officially. Since there are no Group D workers in most schools across the state, mid-day meal workers alone do all the chores apart from cooking. Therefore, the central government has to increase Rs 1,000 immediately for these reasons,” added Lakshmi.
