A one-day nationwide strike of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Medical and Sales Representatives Union (MPSRU) called by the Federation of Medical and Sales Representative s Association of India (FMRAI) would be staged on December 16.
More than 3 lakh medical and sales representatives from organized and unorganized sector and other industries who are working as contractual or trainee would be staging nationwide protest raising demands from the Centre and state government and employers.
Decreasing the prices of medicines, corruption in medicine industry, implementation of labour laws, significant change in drug policy of the Central Government, fixation of minimum salary by state government and 8 hours of working hours.
Main reason behind the protest was the lack of strict implementation of labour laws in the country which has made the employers tyrant and have lead to the exploitation of the sales representatives across the country.
The State Government is more negligent than center government as after several protests in the past two decades Madhya Pradesh government has not implemented minimum salary after issuing notification. The demand of fixation of 8 hours of working remained in the form of proposal. The overtime is not paid even after the companies are deploying the sales representatives of working for 10-12 hours. Several states have accepted the demand of accepting Sales Promotion Employees as worker but the state has not done the changes section 2(s) of the Industrial Dispute Act. State government and labour department have failed to implement MPE Act made for Medical and Sales Representatives and have further augmented their problems by stopping working.