Tamil Nadu Nurses Forced to Call Off Strike After HC Stay Order

Nearly 4,000 protesting nurses from across Tamil Nadu—who are demanding regularisation of service and better pay—were forced to call off their strike, which was on since November 27, after the Madras High Court on November 29 declared their strike “illegal” and warned of “stern action”.

For three days, the nurses under the banner of the Tamil Nadu MRB (Medical Services Recruitment Board) Nurses Empowerment Association and MRB Nurses Welfare Association were staging a protest outside the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services in Chennai.

Appointed on a contract basis at government hospitals and primary health centres (PHCs) across the state under the Centre-sponsored National Rural Health Mission, the nurses are being paid a consolidated salary of Rs 7,700 per month.

They are demanding that they be covered under Government Order (GO) 191 of the Tamil Nadu government, released in 1962, which is applicable to government employees. According to GO 191, all those who are appointed through competitive exams should be made regular appointments.

The agitating nurses said they were not aware of the GO at the time of their appointment. They said earlier representations made to government officials yielded no results.

However, they were recruited after clearing competitive exam conducted by the Medical Recruitment Board in 2015, and were therefore eligible to be made permanent in their jobs, they said. Along with a higher salary, being made permanent would ensure them eight-hour work shifts and time-pay scale that regular nurses enjoy, among other benefits.

“The government said after two years of service, nurses would be given permanent job. If that were done, we would receive a pay of more than Rs 40,000. Our work shift would be just eight hours instead of the present gruelling 12-14 hours,” Sudhakar G, general secretary the MRB Nurses Empowerment Association, told a newspaper.

On November 27, Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services had issued show-cause notices to the nearly 4,000 nurses who remained off-duty on the first day of the strike.

On November 29, acting on a petition filed by one N Ganesh of Chennai, the High Court passed an interim order restraining the nurses from the two associations from observing strike.

Stating that protests by persons providing essential services called for stern action, the court said, “We thus deem it appropriate to declare the strike as illegal. We pass an interim order restraining the TN Medical Recruitment Board (MRB) Nurses Empowerment Association and MRB Nurses Welfare Association from taking recourse to strike,” as quoted by the New Indian Express.

The court also made it clear that any nurse who refrained from duty should do so at the risk of suffering consequences, which include termination of employment and/or penalisation for contempt of court.

The HC added, however, that once the striking nurses resume work, the state health and family welfare department shall immediately resume negotiations for improvement of service conditions and pay.

Adjourning the matter till January 2, the court ordered that the status report on the outcome of the negotiations should be filed before the court.

Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar told the media that the department had recommended a hike in the nurses’ salary to at least Rs 15,000 a month. He also said the nurses would be made permanent as and when vacancy arose. Whether the nurses will receive their due needs to be seen.