People's Democracy

MUMBAI

  Workers From Closed Factories Stage Dharna, Demo

  P R Krishnan

ON Wednesday, April 23, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) organised an impressive joint dharna and demonstration of workers from factories that have been closed down, of sugarcane crushing workers, Nagar Palika employees and powerloom workers. These workers had come from different districts in Maharashtra.

The dharna was staged in response to the decision arrived at and the call given by a state level convention of workers of closed industrial units, held at Nasik on April 5. The memorandum submitted to the government in this regard listed the specific problems and demands of these workers. The CITU delegation, which met the state chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, demanded that the state government take immediate steps to get the closed factories reopened, to get the affected workers reinstated or rehabilitated, to confiscate the assets and properties of the closed units and establish a corpus of Rs 100 crore to assist the workers of the closed down factories. Another demand was about payment of arrears of wages and other legal dues to the workers of closed industries, and penal action against the unscrupulous, defaulting employers. The delegation demanded promulgation of an ordinance providing unemployment relief of Rs 1000 per month to the workers of closed industrial units. In this regard, the CITU drew attention of the government to the fact that the Left Front government in West Bengal is already giving Rs 500 per month to each of the workers affected by the closure of industries. The memorandum also asked for a 5 years period of tax concessions to small-scale industries.

A specific demand of the 5 lakh strong sugarcane crushing workers was that the government must establish a Mathad Board for regulation of employment of these workers and their service conditions in the state.

In regard to the Nagar Palika employees, the memorandum demanded implementation of their pending demands as per the assurance given by the previous chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

So far as the 7 lakh strong powerloom workers are concerned, it will be pointed here that employers themselves have illegally closed operations of their units from April 1, rendering their workers unemployed. Then there is the fact that employers do not even pay the statutory minimum wage to their workers. Another fact is that even the notified minimum wage for this industry has not been revised upward in the last more than 20 years. The CITU delegation therefore demanded that, as a first step, the state government must issue a notification declaring the closure of powerloom units as illegal lockout and make the employers liable to pay wages and other legal dues to the workers.

The delegation also held an hour long discussion with labour minister Dr Hemant Deshmukh. In addition, the delegation also held discussions with Sunil Tatkare, the minister in charge of panchayats, nagar parishads and municipalities, regarding the problems of Nagar Palika employees. The delegation comprised the CITU’s state level leaders and office bearers of different unions such as Ahilya Ranganekar, K L Bajaj, Dr D L Karad, Suryaji Salunke, Kumar Chirelker, G P Gavit (MLA), Ramji Varta (MLA), Amrut Meshram, P R Krishnan, Anna Sawant, Datta Mane, Shankar Pujari, Babe Saheb Sarode, Sitaram Thombre, Chandrakant Malapati, Madhur Kshirsagar and advocate V G Khade.

Though Maharashtra is rated as the most advanced industrial state and Mumbai is credited with the glory of being the commercial capital of India, this forward state now has the largest number of closed industrial units, thanks to the policies of globalisation. It is a plain fact that sickness in and closure of establishments bears no demarcation. It covers every type of industrial activity in the state, like engineering, cotton textile, powerlooms, rubber, plastic, sugar and other units. The main reason for the widespread closure is the entry of multinationals in all sectors of industrial, commercial, economic and agricultural activities. The result is large scale joblessness ---not only in urban areas but in rural Maharashtra as well.

How alarming the situation is, can be very well gauged from the revelations made by The Economic Times dated March 12, 2003. The report which this paper carried reveals amongst other things that, in the last three years alone, Maharashtra has witnessed more than 18,000 industrial units getting closed down. This has rendered more than 3,25,000 workers jobless in the industrial sector. This revelation is not based on speculation but stems from an authentic statement made by the state labour minister Satish Chaturvedi in the state’s legislative council the previous day. As per The Economic Times, the minister further told the legislative council that in AD 2000, the very opening year of the century, 4,641 units came to be closed down in Maharashtra. The figure of closed industrial units in the following year (2001) rose to 6,764. A year later, in 2002, the number in the state stood at 6,739. The statistics further revealed that out of 28,069 establishments in the MIDCs reserved for small scale industries alone, the number of closed industrial units had crossed to the alarming figure of 3,427 by June 2002.

According to this paper, a study conducted by the state’s industry department has revealed that 3,191 units have got wound up as they were in miserable conditions. More than 236 units in the medium and large industries are likely to meet the same fate sooner or later. The Economic Times sent a further shock wave across the state when it revealed that a survey conducted by the authorities in closed industrial units in 32 districts of the state have shown that the Konkan region is the worst hit in the matter of closures. The report says that out of the 8,425 units in Mumbai, Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts, as many as 1,402 were closed down till June 2002. In the Thane industrial belt alone, out of 6,365 units, 1,193 establishments have been closed down. Pune division ranks highest in industrial sickness. The reasons for closure of and sickness in industries as per the state’s labour department, as quoted by The Economic Times, are lack of working capital, slump in the manufacturing sector, and financial mismanagement by employers.

It was in this background that the CITU held the state level convention at Nasik on April 5 and organised the dharna and demonstration at Azad Maidan in Mumbai on April 23.

The workers sitting on dharna in Azad Maidan were addressed, among others, by CITU leaders P P Sanzgiri, Dr Ashok Dhawale, Mahendra Singh, Dr D L Karad, Kumar Shiralkar, Suryaji Salunkhe, Dr Vivek Monteiro, Suman Sanzgiri, Professor Pandit Munda and K R Raghul.