Demanding immediate halt of expansion of chain pharmacies like MedPlus and Apollo Pharmacy as their operations adversely affect the employment of salesmen under distributors, the newly floated Tamil Nadu Medical Wholesale Salesmen’s Federation (TMWSF) has decided to organize a mass rally in Chennai on May 1 to press for their demands.

The Federation’s other demands include job security for its members and employees’ benefits like PF and ESI, said TMWSF general secretary NS Arumugham. R S Swaminathan, salesman at Mohan Pharma at Pallavaram in Chennai is the president of TMWSF.

The members of the Federation, obviously the lowest level employees’ organisation in the pharmaceutical trade sector, comprise the salesmen or order collection employees working on commission basis in the shops of distributors and stockists.

According to Arumugham, who is working in Sri Krishna Pharma in Trichy, there are over 10,000 employees working as salesmen in the stockists’ shops all over the state and they have been in the field for the last 25 years, without getting any benefit or reasonable wage. The Federation has a membership of 1500 such workers, and the membership drive is in progress. TMWSF is backed by the CITU led Tamil Nadu Medical and Sales Representatives Association (TNMSRA) which is taking care of the promotional work of medical companies’ products, he said.

The employees, whose duty is to take orders from retailers and get the medicines to the shops as required, are engaged on commission wise in various districts. S Ramesh Sundar, general secretary of TNMSRA, said that the organisation of salesmen working in distributors’ shops are strong in West Bengal and in Kerala and efforts are afoot to organize in Tripura and other states where CITU is strong.

Speaking to Pharmabiz, Arumugham said they are fighting against the expansion of chain pharmacies like MedPlus and Appollo Pharmacy in the country because their operations adversely affect the employment of salesmen under distributors. Besides, the chain pharmacies, which are directly purchasing medicines from the manufacturing companies, are selling them on discounted rates that also affect the existence of retail shops and thereby the order collection staff.

The Federation’s demands include Rs.10,000 as minimum salary to a worker and regularize the workers and stopping the commission system. “Even the commission also varies in district wise. While in Cuddalur and Villupuram, an employee is getting only Rs.4500 for one month’s job, in Thirunelveli and Thoothukudi, the monthly commission comes around Rs.5000. Our work is heavy and we are the supporting pillars of the business, but our earning is very less. Now the Federation is getting tremendous support from everywhere,” he told Pharmabiz.

Meanwhile rejecting all the demands of the TMWSF, Tamil Nadu Pharmaceutical Distributors’ Federation general secretary V P Elango said the TMWSF is a paper organisation and the members are mere commission agents. “They are not our employees, we have separate staff. We are giving all benefits to our permanent staffs who are working with us for more than 15 years, and they don’t have any union. Our association has not recognized the commission agents as employees,” he said.