About 1,000 workers at the Kajaria Yarn & Twines, at Sibpur in Howrah district, today woke up see an indefinite lockout notice at the factory.
Even as the effect of closure of two factories—Videocon (temporary) and Dunlop—in Bengal are yet to die down, a strike threat in the jute mills is looming large, a premonition of the return of days of strikes and lockouts.
In December 2009, jute mill workers in 52 jute mills in West Bengal had gone on an indefinite strike, culminating into a tripartite agreement, signed between the government of West Bengal, mill owners and workers. The agreement is valid till February 2013 and jute workers have already submitted a new charter of demands to the mill owners.
“There is a possibility of strike in the coming days,” said Sanjay Kajaria, former chairman of the Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA).
Jute is one of the few manufacturing sectors in West Bengal which is still surviving, despite challenges posed by trade unions, which has prompted many textiles and paint units to shift base from the state. However, the labour protest are not the reasons behind the rising lockouts in the state, rather they are the effect of a bigger problem--the poor financial condition of manufacturing units in the state.
Failed attempts to reopen closed factories
Ironically, opening closed factories topped the manifesto of the present government. Amit Mitra, finance minister, West Bengal, had said there would be a plan to open about 58,000 closed factories in the state that have about 44,000 acres locked within.
“The reopened jute mills are open, but not functional,” said Amitabh Chakraborty of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions CITU). Kajaria of IJMA too admitted that the reopened mills are hardly functional.
Over the last year, there were at least four to five cases of temporary lock-outs in the jute mills.
In June 2012, Purnendu Basu, Minister in Charge Department of Labour, informed
the Assembly that as many as 21,570 workers have been rendered jobless in West Bengal due to closure of six jute mills and three tea gardens.
Labour shortage and NREGA hits the Jute sector
Recently, Sanjay Kajaria, owner of several jute mills in the state, voluntarily raised wages of temporary workers to about Rs 220 per day, against the earlier rate of Rs 157 per day, a move unheard of in the sector.
An acute shortage of labourers, together with a sharp decline of migratory labourers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and parts of South India, has led to a substantial shortage of workers in the mills. Higher wages under NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) scheme and employment in the construction sector has been reasons behind the shortage.
Temporary workers in most jute mills in the state get around Rs 157 per day, while permanent workers get about Rs 350 per day. Only about 10% workers in the jute mills are permanent, and thus a majority of them get Rs 157 per day.
In the construction sector, labourers get about Rs 350 per day, which is almost double the wages of temporary workers in jute mills. The minumim wage under NREGA is slightly above Rs 130 per day, depending upon the state.
In addition, the stacking up of large dues in employee provident fund and gratuity by jute mill owners has earned a bad reputation for the sector. According to Chakraborty of CITU, about Rs 330 crore of gratuity and Rs 250 crore of provident fund dues are yet to be paid by mill owners to workers.
Dilution of compulsory packaging norms
This year, for the first time, the government had diluted packaging norms under the mandatory Jute Packaging Materials Act (JPMA) of 1987, by 60%.
The act mandated the sugar mills to use only jute bags for packing sugar. However, with jute mills often failing to meet the demand from sugar mills on time, and availability of cheaper substitutes of packaging materials like plastic, the packaging norms were diluted in favour of sugar mills.
With the dilution of the norms, demand for jute bags has come down.
“We are getting absolutely no orders from sugar mills,” said Manish Poddar, Chairman, IJMA.
As a result of the dilution norms, the prices of raw jute have also been coming down.
