Relay Strike By Medical And Sales Representatives  

ABOUT one lakh medical and sales representatives working in pharmaceuticals and various other industries participated in the one and a half month long relay strike from May 8 to June 25, at the call of the Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives Associations of India (FMRAI), in pursuance of their 9 point demands charter. In what turned out to be an innovative programme, each sales promotion employee in each state participated in the strike. The strike began in Kerala on May 8 and concluded in West Bengal on June 25. The strike programme scored a tremendous success in each state from Jammu & Kashmir in the north to Kerala in the south and Gujarat in the west to Assam in the east, with 300 city and town units of the organisation taking part in it. Sales promotion activities were completely paralysed in each state. Prior to the strike, field workers all over the country organised street corner meetings and rallies and also distributed more than 10 lakh leaflets among doctors, chemists and common people, highlighting the impact of LPG policies particularly on the pharmaceutical industry. All the towns and cities were decorated with banners and posters, and torch light processions were taken out before the medical and sales representatives went on the strike.

The attack of the industrialists aims to eliminate the profession of the medical and sales representatives. They are recruiting employees of casual nature in the guise of officers, contracting the work out, making sales a part of the service conditions, imposing punitive actions, and also imposing unbearable workloads and a humiliating work system. Even after 55 years of independence, the central government has failed to announce minimum wage for the sales promotion employees. Along with these employees’ demands on these scores, reduction of drug prices, stoppage of black marketing of medicine, ban on spurious drugs, production of rational drugs, halt to the process of dismantling the public sector, halt to retrograde changes in labour laws, etc, were also among the demands put forward by the FMRAI. All these ignited the field workers of the country to go in for this strike programme. This and a half month long relay strike by the medical and sales representatives got support from the CITU, DYFI, SFI, AIDWA, AIKS, BEFI, insurance workers, organisations of central and state government employees, and other democratic organisations. During the entire period of strike, doctors and their organisations as well as chemists and their organisations generally extended support to the cause of the striking workers. The strike attracted significant media attention in each state.

But the central government and the employers’ organisation, i e, Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), the organisations of multinational drug manufacturers and the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA) failed to respond.

The working committee meeting of the FMRAI, to be held at Ranchi on July 12 and 13, will finalise the details of future programmes including a march to parliament and a demonstration in Mumbai.