This refers to Shyamal Majumdar’s column “Souring industrial relations” (The Human Factor, October 14). The workers at Maruti are striking for their right to determine the leadership/union of their choice. At Coal India the workers are demanding a paltry Rs 500 per month bonus (which would cost the company Rs 280 crore), when the company has made a profit of Rs 10,687 crore and has given shareholders a 40 per cent. Somewhere, the framework of understanding this precarious labour-production-management relationship has faltered.
Though the state has viewed labour as a strategic resource, it has done little to address their aspirations or insecurity. For example, the BPO/KPO industry or management workers are outside the scope of labour laws simply because there are no unions to articulate their problems. It is well known that call centre jobs are 24-hour surveillance jobs and target-based remuneration along with bell curve performance parameters are one-sided and can become unconscionable.
Managements have focused on critical talent, assuming mass talent can be replaced with contract labour. Yet a strong internal leader, which also counts as talent, can create group enthusiasm and energy in a way managers and leaders cannot. For example, in Maruti, the period 1985 to 2000 saw an explosion of productivity with a strong non-affiliated internal union without affecting the workforce. Management personnel have been seen in civil society movements but they have not shown any initiative to make important social security vehicles such as Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation and Employees State Insurance Corporation more robust.
The unions, too, are at fault, preferring conflict as a means to an end. Instead of pushing for more adaptive approaches such as “strike ballot”, they judge their success by their ability to bring the system to a halt.
Part of the reason is that the employer-employee relation is an evolving one. Also, the changes in the country’s labour laws are episodic, delayed and unreliable. For example, teachers became eligible for gratuity after some 35 years of the Act being passed simply because the definition of employee was broad, though specific enough to exclude them.
The existing tripartite machinery through the labour conference at the national level and state-level institutions is taking advantage of this confusion. For example, a bus conductor caught cheating for pocketing fares also approaches the Supreme Court (UP State Road Transport Corporation vs Suresh Chand Sharma) and so does a company that knowingly manages to successfully evade the principles of natural justice for 10 years while dismissing an employee (Amar Chakravarty & Ors. vs Maruti Suzuki India Limited).
Perhaps a focused, nuanced approach is needed. It is hoped that the new policy for the National Manufacturing Zones will achieve this.
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Hari Parmeshwar, Mumbai
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