Date:22/09/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/09/22/stories/2004092201681700.htm

Back Textile unions meet on tribunal issue

G. Gurumurthy

Coimbatore , Sept. 21

THE number of textile mills managements that achieved bilateral settlement of the wage dispute with their workers and got them passed before the special industrial tribunal appointed by the Tamil Nadu Government has gone up.

According to textile workers trade union sources here, 103 memorandum of settlements (MoS) reached between individual textile mill managements and their workmen, which were filed before the one-man special industrial tribunal headed by Mr Justice M. Sowundarapandian, were accepted and passed by the tribunal as its interim awards.

The sources told Business Line that while the first batch of 68 settlements was passed as awards by the tribunal early this year,another 35 settlements were recently passed. Many of these settlements were notified in the State gazette by the Government last month.

While a majority of the 103 mills are from southern part of the State, the list also includes a few units from the Coimbatore region. The details of the settlements including the nature of wage revision agreed to by both sides are, however, not available.

Meanwhile, the Coimbatore headquartered joint action committee (JAC) of major textile trade unions has called a meeting of the State level joint action committee here on Wednesday to discuss the issue relating to the individual settlement of disputes and the tribunal's passage of awards.

All major Central trade unions' textile workers affiliates - LPF, INTUC, HMS, MLF, CITU, AITUC and Anna Thozhilalar Peravai - constitute the umbrella JAC.

JAC is opposed to the unit level MoS being passed as interim awards by the tribunal. It says no individual settlements should be allowed without settling the `industry-wise' dispute on wage. It also says the standardisation of wages as the point of reference to the tribunal is not concerned with the conditions of the service of the workers of individual textile mills.

The mill workers wage issue was referred by the State Government to the industrial tribunal for adjudication in September 2001 under the Industrial Disputes Act after the protracted conciliations between the textile mill managements and the workers unions failed to break the deadlock.

Originally, 1,692 textile units were cited at the industrial tribunal as the parties to the dispute. The list was subsequently expanded to 1,803. The wage dispute was then transferred to a special tribunal in July 2002.