Minimum Wages for Medical Representatives

The wait for minimum monthly basic salary has now got longer for medical representatives as the State government is yet to notify in the gazette the minimum wages it announced on February 15. A medical representatives’ union had earlier sought fixation of a minimum basic pay of Rs. 15,000 and annual hikes.

Around 25,000 medical representatives are working for about 3,000 pharmaceutical companies, including multinational firms. Nationally, over one lakh medical representatives are working for low salaries, says C. Prabhakar Devadoss, general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Medical and Sales Representatives Association (TNMSRA). “With newer pharmaceutical companies coming up, our numbers will only go up. We want the government to ensure that we are guaranteed our rightful wages. For a person to be assured of a normal living a minimum wage instead of commission or incentive is necessary,” says R. Ramesh, general secretary of the Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives’ Association.

While a minimum qualification of B Sc or B Pharm is required for the job, pharmaceutical companies do not encourage formation of unions, says an association member. At present, only 9,000 members are enrolled in the TNMSRA and only a third of the employees are in large multinational companies, say the representatives.

The rest are employed in the small and medium companies and are denied benefits such as leave of absence.

“Our service conditions are bad since a majority of us are not governed by labour laws or don’t have recognised trade unions. Our daily work is not determined by the company. Sometimes, we manage to meet only one doctor and have to return the next day to meet the rest of the doctors in the same clinic,” says R. Viswanathan, a retired medical representative.

“Every year, new companies are coming up across the country. We want the government to enforce the provisions of the Sales Promotion Employees (Service Conditions) Act 1976. The Act provides for issuing an appointment letter in the prescribed form,” he adds.

Source :- The Hindu