60+ Workers, 3 Demands: Housekeeping Workers go on strike, Demand Fair Wages

For over 24 hours, starting 6:30 AM on Thursday, 28th August, workers of the housekeeping staff at Ashoka University — contracted by Bluspring Enterprises (a subsidiary of Quess Corp) — have been on strike, protesting outside Gate 1. The workers' demands include higher wages, yearly pay increments, and the reinstatement of three female workers who were recently arbitrarily fired over false accusations of theft.

Event Timeline

The Ashoka University Student Government (AUSG) sent out an email on Wednesday, 27th August at 7:02 PM calling for an emergency meeting the same day at 10:00 PM. At this meeting, students were informed that the housekeeping staff had called for a protest the next day against their mistreatment at the hands of the administration, as previously reported by The Edict in the spring semester ‘25.

On Thursday, 28^th August, members of the AUSG and other students gathered with the housekeeping staff near Gate 3 at 6:00 AM. Protestors were met by members of the Ashoka administration & Quess management, who instructed them to promptly come back inside the campus and resume work. Furthermore, night shift workers were offered overtime compensation of Rs. 50/hour in order to prevent them from leaving and to cover for the absence of day shift workers. This was refused, and workers, along with students, marched to Gate 1. The strike outside the main gate of the university has since been ongoing.

Several workers were picked up in private vehicles at the highway to prevent them from joining the protests on the way to the university. Many were also physically dragged to the gate by security guards to prevent their participation. These workers were not allowed to speak to their protesting coworkers. 

At 11:30 AM, Nestle’s KitKat outlet in the middle of AC02 & AC03 was temporarily shut. While the administration member who called for the closure informed The Edict it was due to technical issues, the employees informed us that they were unaware of the reason. However, varying claims point to it being due to an employee’s interest in the protest, whose ID card had also since been disabled.

Three hours later, at 2:30 PM, a faculty member, Krishna Seth,* went inside the campus to speak to senior Bluspring staff members, who wanted to meet with five workers. After negotiations, they agreed to speak to ten workers: five male and five female workers. Students & faculty members were forbidden from joining this meeting, as Bluspring only wanted to speak with their ‘employees’.

A second meeting was held an hour later, which was attended by several workers, including two of the three fired didis. At the end of this, workers were requested to put forward their demands as part of a written demand letter, with the list of all of the protesting workers’ names and their employment IDs. 

Ashoka University’s administration has, as of writing, not yet expressed a desire to formally meet with the workers. The only formal acknowledgement of the protest till date has been from the Dean of Student Affairs (DSA), Dr. Dheeraj Sanghi via email. He wrote that because the workers were contracted by an external firm, their employment conditions were “determined by their respective employers,” and that Ashoka “always supported these workers and considered them a part of the "Ashoka family", and was open to discussion with the vendors for proper wage revisions for the workers. He also questioned the reasoning behind the protests, citing the existence of the Workers’ Grievance & Welfare Committee for redressal of workers’ issues.

However, conversations with AUSG Councillor Tanisha Iyer, who also heads the AUSG’s Workers’ Welfare Committee, revealed that the WGWC has been dysfunctional, bordering on defunct, for well over a year, to the extent that Dr. Sanghi himself was allegedly unaware of him being the Chairman of the WGWC, as per Krishna Seth.*

The only body resembling a functioning grievance redressal forum for workers has been the SG’s Workers’ Welfare Committee. Three hours after Dr. Sanghi’s email, the AUSG published one in response, detailing injustices workers have faced at the hands of administrators of various positions.

At 11 PM, the protesting workers were given a show-cause notice by Bluspring Enterprise accusing them of holding an illegal protest and going against company policy. They have since been given 48 hours to produce a reason for doing so or facing disciplinary action in accordance with company policy.

As of writing, the sit-in protest continued overnight, with protesting workers' and students present in solidarity continuing to camp outside Gate 1.

A history of Workers' Issues at Ashoka (credits to: Aditya A. Roy & Srijana Siri)

Workers’ Experiences at Ashoka

Various workers spoke out during the protest about the treatment they faced leading up to the strike. Deepa,* a worker who worked under housekeeping staff for Residence Hall (RH4), alleged that a warden in charge of the RH, forcibly changed her job post out of personal dislike for her. Following Deepa’s testimony, Anjali,* Geeta,* and Maria,* three workers who had been laid off under allegations of theft due to a misunderstanding at the end of the Spring ‘25 semester, added that the decision regarding their employment had been made by the administration alone, with neither their nor the students’ presence. They further claimed wardens would ‘confiscate’ the best items students gave didis and used them either for their own house or sold them.

With regards to their working conditions, some workers told The Edict that each worker in Residence Halls was expected to single-handedly clean several floors, and additionally were instructed to bring utensils left behind by students to the warden’s room. Deepa* added that during her seven years of working at Ashoka University, she was never given a raise, and that of the three verticals of non-teaching staff (dining, housekeeping, and security), housekeeping workers were paid the least — only Rs. 12,000-13,000 per month. The wardens would also allegedly force them to wash their personal dishes for them. The Edict reached out to the warden to corroborate the allegations, who refused to offer any comments.

Maria* revealed that the official letter firing them directly accused them of theft, rendering her and her peers unable to find work in other universities. They have been out of work for at least three months.

Another worker mentioned being forced to sign a transfer letter to another city after refusing to do additional work, and raising his voice against the mistreatment at the hands of higher-ups in the change. The letter was in English, and the worker could not understand the contents of the document.

Before protesting, multiple workers alleged receiving threats of termination from Manish Khatri, Quess Facilities Managers, who told them “kuch hone wala nahi hai.” (Nothing is going to come from this.) They add that Khatri and Kamaldeep Singh, Senior Manager of Housekeeping, frequently use abusive language against workers. Singh, however, denies these claims, while Khatri refused to offer any comments.

Workers have faced a lot of difficulty in reporting these issues, as Quess doesn't have an active HR department on campus. The HR team visits the university once a month; however, according to workers, “they [HR team] always make promises that they do not fulfill, HR says they will talk to higher management and never do.” 

*Pseudonyms have been provided to these individuals to preserve their anonymity. 

(Fact-checked by Tanush Guha and Tanisha Pandey)

(Edited by Somansh Sarangi and Fatema Tambawalla)