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`Labour woes may force units to move out of Kochi SEZ'

G.K. Nair

KOCHI, Oct. 29

THE Cochin Export Processing Zone Industries Association has expressed its serious concern over the intermittant labour problems in the zone and said that if such a situation prevailed the units would be compelled to move out to other States.

The workers on Saturday laid a blocade for over two hours of the zone stopping the entry of management personnel and the staff following a labour dispute in one of the around 45 units in the SEZ. ``This unwanted, uncalled for, illegal and destructive act of trade union will have serious repercussion on the functioning of the units in the CEPZ. This has inflicted a loss of around Rs 50 lakh to the units in the zone,'' Mr Jehangir, President of the Association, told Business Line.

Many companies in the zone, he pointed out, had frequent foreign visitors and currently there were a few visitors from abroad, studying the health of the zone with regard to technical capability, productivity, cost of production, quality, timely delivery and general industrial climate. The act of the trade unions had created `a very poor impression about the zone, resulting in heavy loss of business'. If such a situation arises these units will be reluctantly forced to move out of the zone and the Stat e, he warned.

He said the association had been representing to the Government to make the zone trade union-free and strike-free. ``But our repeated appeal in this respect has gone unheeded. The Government is supportive to militant labour and then how can we run our un its and do business from here'', he quipped.

No foreign company would risk of investing/buying products from the units unless they were confident that quality products were delivered `well on time' at international price. Not a single month passed without one or two labour problems. `We are really scared'. The issues of `Trend Setters' should be discussed and settled between its management and their workers instead of taking all the units in the zone to ransom, he said.

He said it was the only the place in the State where over 6,000 people were given direct employment in the units spread over 100 acres of land. If the units started moving out of the zone, that would render these people jobless. Given the continuous lab our problems, some of the units had already started setting up parallel units outside the State and expansion was also taking place there.

The total turn over the units here was estimated Rs 300 crore and if one day work was stopped the production loss would come to Rs 1 crore, he said.

According to the association officials, the long term settlement between the Trend Setters' management and the workers expired on September 25, and the conciliation meeting was fixed for October 25. But following continuous labour unrest in between, the management put the unit under lockout from October 24, they said.

Meanwhile, the Cochin Chamber of Commerce and Industry said, while the normal tendency was to view these as isolated incidents, it must be clearly understood that such incidents were part of the larger picture which `unfortunately tends to refurbish the image of Kerala as a labour militant state'. Mr A.S. Narayanamoorthy, the Chamber President, said it was important to ensure that any dispute in the industrial sector was resolved judiciously through mutual consultations and dialogue. Another unit Kerala Chemicals and Proteins Limited at Korati in Thrissur district was also under lockout, he said.

He therefore, urged the State Chief Minister to call for the details with respect to the incident and use his good offices to ensure a speedy settlement of the issues.