The management of the Kannur Medical College (KCM) at Anjarakkandy here and the trade union representing a section of medical college and hospital employees traded charges over the strike by the latter demanding minimum wages and bonus.
While management representatives said at a press conference here on Wednesday that the striking union has completely taken over the institution and that the assets of the college and teaching hospital were being destroyed, trade union leaders said in a separate press meet that the management continues to maintain that it was exempted from all labour laws of the country.
Shift to Malappuram
The management’s affidavit in the High Court that it was planning to shift the campus to Malappuram to save the institution and its students also overshadowed the strike launched 44 days ago.
M.A. Hashim, managing director of the Prestige Educational Trust, which runs the Kannur Medical College and other self-financing educational institutions, said that the indefinite strike was turning violent as nine vehicles of the institution had been damaged, canteen forcibly closed, and water and electricity supplies disrupted.
Clinical training and academic activities of the medical college students remained paralysed. The union and their supporters were behaving as if the campus was under their total control, he said.
Accusing the Labour Department of being unfair, the management representatives said the strike had been started without serving any notice.
Allegation
They alleged that the strike had been started by forging a document purported to be an agreement signed between the management and the union in the presence of the Labour Officer.
They said that though the management was paying minimum wages to the employees as per their categories of employment, the dispute in some cases over their designations and appropriate wages was now pending before the Labour Court.
Yet to implement
Countering the management’s charges, Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU) leader K.P. Sahadevan said that the management was yet to implement the agreement signed in the presence of the Regional Joint Labour Commissioner on January 21, 2012 and subsequent agreements signed in January 2014 and August this year.
The management’s position was that labour laws of the land were not applicable to them, he said adding that the conciliatory talks held through mediators decided by the court and through the Labour Department had turned inconclusive because of the adamant stand of the management.
Mr. Sahadevan also said that the CITU would ensure support and protection of the employees if the management decided to shift the campus to Malappuram.
