ASHA workers, crucial to India's vaccination drive, threaten to walk out

Besides being poorly paid, most of them are working without gloves, masks or sanitizers two years into the pandemic.

ASHA workers raise their arms during a protest in New Delhi, India, on Sunday, August 9, 2020.

Dressed in pink, the women have gone door to door for months, persuading people to get Covid-19 vaccines in some of India’s remotest corners, hinterlands and crowded urban slums, often risking their own personal safety. For their trouble, they make about $40 a month, a wage barely enough to make ends meet. More than a million of these frontline healthcare workers across the country — pivotal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of inoculating the nation’s entire population and reviving the $2.6 trillion economy — are soon about to snap.

Nine Asha workers Bloomberg News interviewed across India said authorities who earlier assured them better wages, personal protective equipment and safe working conditions haven’t kept those promises despite a two-day stoppage last year. Even worse, some say they haven’t been paid for months. The All India Trade Union Congress is planning protests in New Delhi when the nation’s parliament is in session through Dec. 23, said General Secretary Amarjeet Kaur. “We are talking to other trade unions and are planning a national strike in December for all scheme workers,” said A.R. Sindhu, national secretary for the Communist-linked Centre of Indian Trade Unions.

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