SASCHA WIL­SON

"One per­cent, noth­ing! Two per­cent, noth­ing"

The shouts of health­care work­ers in an ear­ly morn­ing protest against the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer's two per­cent of­fer over an eight-year pe­ri­od.

March­ing through the com­pound of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, they shout­ed:

"We’re worth more than that!"

Ring­ing a bell as they called on their col­leagues to stand up, the work­ers com­plained that the of­fer is not on­ly un­fair; it is an in­sult.

"We fight through a pan­dem­ic!  The Prime Min­is­ter promise he will take care of us," a work­er lament­ed. “We not tak­ing that!”

In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, Ri­car­do Goolcha­ran, said this is just the start of protest ac­tion that will be sweep­ing through the RHAs.

Mak­ing it clear that they did not dis­rupt the hos­pi­tal op­er­a­tions, the PSA’s IRO said all the work­ers who are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the protest are off du­ty to­day.

Goolcha­ran ex­plained their protest was not about pol­i­tics, but for work­ers to have com­fort­able life.

"For too long gov­ern­ment is hold­ing health care work­ers to ran­som,” he told Guardian Me­dia.