 "Titagarh Wagons adds to the list of closures in Bengal")
Management has cited reasons like “ insubordination and acute indiscipline by workers” leading to “unprecedent crisis on account of low production and productivity” for the suspension of work.
Last week, nine leaders of Trinamool-led INTTUC and CPI(M)-led CITU met the management demanding ESI, financial and medical benefits for the workers who are sent on assignments outside the factory. Titagarh Wagons’ factory sends its workers for commissioning and repairing works to its sister concerns in Uttarpara and Bharatpur in Rajasthan. “The management promised us that the issue would be resolved within 10 days,” said Ashwini Shukla, secretary of INTTUC at the plant. Trouble started brewing when the leaders were served a show-cause notice by the management on September 2 asking them to reply within 48 hours. “Though we replied within the stipulated time, the management suspended us, our gatepasses were seized by security and we were asked not to report for work from the next day,” says Shukla. Five of the suspended workers are from INTTUC while the rest are from CITU.
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Meanwhile the workers of the plant complained of gross violations of labour laws and denial of benefits by the management and requested the government for a tripartite meeting to resolve the issue.
According to Dharmendra Yadav, president of the INTTUC unit at the plant and one of the suspended 9 workers, they have been denied basic benefits like gratuity and Provident Funds. “There are gross violations of labour laws here. The management has over the years denied us benefits like gratuity and Provident Fund,” said Yadav.
He said that though the Titagarh plant is a heavy industry unit, workers here were not paid according to industry standards. “We have been asking the management to raise our wage for the past several years. Workers here don’t even have a proper pay slip.” The Titagarh plant besides producing wagon for the Indian railways also manufactures bunkers, bailey bridges and specialised equipment for the defence sector.
Workers said that there was acute labour shortage at the plant and to compensate that supervisors rotate them between different sections without proper training. “I was working as a fitter and was asked to shift to welding last month by the supervisor. The company calls it multi-skilling,” says Mohammed Siraj who has been working in the company since its inception in 1996. He claims that in spite of grievances, there has not been a single attempt by the workers to disrupt functions of the plant. The management, however, has a different story to rell. “A handful of workers were creating nuisance, which prompted us to suspend nine workers. This led to a tool-down protest by workers. They were coming to the plant, but not working. We had no option but to suspend work given the scenario,” Umesh Chowdhary, managing director of Titagarh Wagons told Business Standard. He, however, claimed that the management was keen to reopen the plant as soon as labour issues are resolved. “We have orders for 2,000 wagons, for which we have 10 months in hand. We got this order only a month and a half ago. Before that for a period of six months we went on paying wages without any work. Now, when we have orders, we expect from the workers to respect our gesture at that point in time,” Chowdhary said.
The plant, at present, has around 540 workers of whom 230 are permanent. Workers though alleged that the permanent workers enjoy no added benefits and are paid according to the principle of no-work-no-pay.
Titagarh Wagons’ is not an isolated case. Over the past months, there have been a series of closures in West Bengal, like Dunlop, Hindustan Motors, Shalimar Paints, and most of the companies have cited labour problem as the primary reason.