NEW DELHI: An FIR has been registered by the Delhi Police against 100 members of The Delhi ASHA Workers Union and Centre of Indian Trade Unions for staging a protest at Jantar Mantar on August 9 regarding their unregularised wage structure.
“This FIR is not going to deter us. We will see how we can turn this into a positive and motivate ourselves for the cause,” said Kavita Yadav who is the state coordinator for ASHA workers, All India United Traders Union Centre.
Kavita though noted that the unions have not yet seen the copy of the FIR and that the police has not approached them directly regarding the matter.
“We came to know about the FIR via Twitter. It’s going to be very difficult for us to decide how to approach the matter without knowing the exact details, but that doesn’t mean that we will step back from our decision. We will go on strike again on July 21,” she added.
Amid the pandemic, the ASHA workers have been working tirelessly as frontline workers. The workers have been engaged in teams, that would visit houses of COVID-19 patients, who were put in home isolation to check their status every day.
“So many of our colleagues got infected, but we never complained or said that we wouldn’t do our job. But the FIR is not something that we expected. I am not surprised though... All we know is that the police have never been on our side. Whenever we have raised an issue or protest for our basic rights, authorities have replied with ‘lathis’ of the police,” Kavita stated.
She also noted that the workers are now tired of listening to false promises provided by the authorities.
“We have been demanding fixed wages for long. Even earlier we promised of being given the status of an employee and a fixed monthly wage among other basic facilities, but no government, be it Central or State, irrespective of parties have ever actually addressed our issues. We want the Delhi Health Minister to have a word with us... We have been working as frontline workers, they have to rethink our pay structure,” she noted.