In Kerala, India, over 26,000 ASHA workers are taking strike action demanding fair wages, safe working conditions, and formal labour protections. ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers, the backbone of India’s public health system, continue to be treated as volunteers despite carrying the responsibilities of trained health professionals. Their demands are clear and urgent: fixed monthly wages, pension, social security, and full inclusion under India’s labour laws.

A petition backing their demands has been released for May Day.
👉 Support Kerala ASHA Workers 

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, Lady Health Workers are threatening to go on hunger strike over delayed wages, failure to recognise the value of workers and a recruitment freeze. Unlike workers in India, they are recognised as health workers, yet they remain undervalued and overworked. While health workers striking against privatisation in Punjab, Pakistan were attacked with water canons to force through the corporatisation of critical public health infrastructure. 

Meanwhile, in Aotearoa New Zealand, nearly 1,000 home support workers from Access Community Health are walking off the job from 12–2pm on May Day — the first strike in nearly 20 years by these essential workers. Despite delivering life-sustaining care to the elderly and vulnerable, they are being met with a proposal that includes no pay increases, 90-day trial periods, fewer sick days, and the removal of qualification pay steps. 

"Home support workers are an incredibly dedicated group of people – it takes a lot for them to walk off the job," said Melissa Woolley, Assistant Secretary of the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. "The fact that they’re striking alongside senior doctors and perioperative nurses shows how broken the system is." 

“From Pakistan to India and New Zealand our health systems have depended on the exploitation of low paid health and care workers, most of whom are women” said Kate Lappin, PSI Asia Pacific Regional Secretary. “With increasing support across the region and the world, and the growing strength of their unions, Community Health Workers are demanding that governments put people before profits and value care before billionaires”. 

From the rural districts of India and Pakistan, to the urban hospitals of New Zealand, these strikes reveal a common crisis: the exploitation of feminised, precarious care labour underfunded by governments and outsourced to profit-driven entities. 

We refuse to let these workers stand alone.

May Day is a day for working-class unity, and today we unite behind the care workers who sustain our communities — unseen, underpaid, and overworked.

We demand:

• Dignified wages and conditions for all Community Health Workers.

• Labour recognition and protections for ASHA workers and their counterparts.

• Public investment in care work, not austerity or privatisation.

• Respect for the 2017 pay equity settlement in New Zealand.

An injury to one is an injury to all. On May Day 2025, stand up for those who spend their days standing up for us.