The mid-day meal cooks affiliated to the School Pachaka Thozhilali Union of the All Indian Trade Union Congress (AITUC) of the Communist Party of India (CPI) have threatened to suspend work unless their long-pending demands are addressed by the government.
They staged a protest in Kochi on Saturday demanding that the government take immediate steps to release their pending salary, as promised by the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, and retirement benefits.
As per official estimates, there are over 13,000 mid-day meal cooks in schools across the State. They are entitled to get a daily honorarium of ₹600. P.G. Mohanan, State secretary of the union, said the total number of mid-day meal cooks in the State would come to around 20,000.
