News

UNI Global Union, through the UNI National Liaison Council (UNI NLC), has been focusing on organizing private hospital, health and care workers in Nepal, and there are some recent successes to celebrate.

Initially, private hospitals were very challenging to organize as there big problems with freedom of association at each workplace. However, health and safety issues, and other workplace concerns, have created compelling reasons to organize. Workplace unions were seen as the only way to resolve the problems workers were facing on the job. Activists worked quickly, day in day out, to build unions, and every day found new leaders in the workplace to stand up. The union members and leaders have withstood discrimination: some have been fired, transferred, or otherwise attacked, but ultimately there are three big success stories which the UNI NLC can celebrate and build on. Three major private hospitals have now been unionized and workers have either won, or are on the road to winning, collective agreements improving their pay, conditions, and voice at work.

The first hospital to be unionized was the OM hospital in Kathmandu where 400 out of 490 workers became members of the OM Hospital Workers Union-(OHWU) and these workers negotiated and won a signed collective agreement with improvements to gratuities, paid leave, and insurance provisions, and also provides pay increases, improved service conditions plus space for a union office at the hospital.

The success of this has encouraged workers at the nearby NMC Hospital to build a union, and just last month 410 out of 550 employees voted to form a union, the NMC Hospital Workers Union, and have formed a new committee elected to represent them. This committee of workplace leaders is now in negotiations for a collective agreement.

And once again, following this success, another hospital - KMC hospital - where there are nearly 700 employees, overwhelmingly voteed to elect their new leadership and collective bargaining team on 8 March 2014 in order to negotiate new benefits and have their voices heard at work. 

Mr. Keshab Chaulagain - President of OHWU and UNI NLC Organizing Coordinator for Private hospital, health and Care Sector expressed confidence that the workers will win the election at KMC Hospital and increase union coverage in other private hospitals in Nepal: `It is very good news to see workers organizing unions across the private health sector in Nepal, together these workers are going from strength to strength’.