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Centre accedes port, dockers wage plea

Our Bureau

CHENNAI, July 3

THE Centre has acceded to the Port and Dock workers' demand for wage settlement with retrospective effect, according to Mr. Shanthi Patel, the Hind Mazdoor Sabha leader and President of the Steel, Metal and Engineers Federation of India.

Addressing a meeting here, on trade union movement in the new millennium, he said that the decision was made known to him over phone by the Minister concerned. This will mean that the wage settlement would come into effect from January 1, 1998, from the date of expiry of the previous wage settlement and not just from the date of signing of the current settlement.

Further, the Minister concerned had indicated that the other major demand of the workers to restrict the period of settlement for five years instead of 10 is likely to be given a favourable consideration, he added.

This decision was bound to have an impact on policies dictating wage settlement not just in public sector undertakings, but also the private sector. This had been made possible only through the united efforts of the workers concerned, and was bound to up lift the morale of the workers.

An outcome of the decade old process of globalisation has been lose of jobs as a result of restructuring and rationalisation to meet global competition. Scores of small and medium enterprises have been edged out. Unless there was a basic shift in the eco nomic policy, the plight of the workers would be deplorable. It was time for all the trade unions in the country to unite under a single flag to bring about the change, he said.

Mr. R. Kuchelan, Chairman of the Working People's Trade Union Council, which organised the meeting, said that world-wide mergers of industries had strengthened the bargaining power of the employers.

However, workers had been decentralised by the system of outsourcing. Developed countries with saturated economies were eying developing countries as new markets. With advanced technologies and economies of scale, they would displace domestic industries, and the workers would suffer.

It was up to the unions to unite under a single entity to bring to protect the domestic industry and the workers. In developed countries such as Germany, unions could effectively influence the Government policies only because of their monolithic structur e.