PROJECT ON EFFECTS OF STRIKES AND LOCKOUT
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INTRODUCTION Strike costing India Rs 10,000 cr daily: Truckers The All India Motor Transport Congress has claimed its members are incurring a daily loss of Rs 1,000 crore, while it is taking a toll of Rs 10,000 crore per day on the country's overall business due to the strike, which continued for the second day on Tuesday. "The transporters in the country are facing a loss of about Rs 1,000 crore every day due to stopping of business," AIMTC President Charan Singh Lohara told reporters in New Delhi. He claimed that due to the ongoing strike, "the country is incurring huge business losses to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore per day". AIMTC, the umbrella body with over 4,000 affiliated unions, claimed that about 60 lakh trucks have been taking part in the strike demanding lower diesel prices, single national permit fee and exemption from service tax among other things. "Different finance companies have taken back about 40,000 trucks across the country due to loan default," Lohara said, adding the government should support the truckers' community like it did for other sectors like real estate and aviation. "ATF prices have been cut eight times since global crude prices started to fall, but the same has not been done with diesel," he added. As the government is currently mulling to bring ATF under declared goods category, diesel should also be brought under the same, with four per cent uniform VAT across the country, Lohara added. He also asked the government to allow duty-free import of tyres, mainly radial tyres, to break the cartel of domestic manufacturers.
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Across India, bank employees go on two-day strike on Friday, August 7th, 2009
Nearly one million bank employees in India, including some with private and foreign banks, went on a two-day nationwide strike Thursday demanding higher wages and a better social security net. The strike has been called by the United Forum of Bank Unions — an umbrella organisation representing nine unions of officers and other staff in the banking industry. According to reports coming in from across the country, people were able to withdraw money from automated teller machines (ATMs) even though other services like getting demand drafts and obtaining cheque books were affected. “No transactions till Saturday in any public sector bank or branches,” said K.F. Mamadapur, secretary of one of the striking unions, the All-India State Bank Officers’ Federation, in Bangalore. Apart from the staff in all state-run banks, those with private entities like Catholic Syrian Bank and foreign ones like HSBC also joined the agitation. But the operations of some institutions like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Standard Chartered were unaffected. “Around 10 lakh employees across all the public sector and private sector banks have gone on strike,” said Rajen Nagar, national president of another union — All India Bank Employees’ Association. “We are also protesting against unnecessary government intervention, which is delaying our wage settlement,” Nagar told IANS in Kolkata. The wage revision is due from November 2007. In Madhya Pradesh, the strike affected commercial activities in major cities such as Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur. “Total transaction worth Rs.150,000 crore were affected,” claimed All India Bank Employees Association general secretary V.K. Sharma. In seven northeastern states, more than 30,000 bank employees took part in the agitation.
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In Karnataka, about 80,000 employees of public sector and old private banks across the state, including 25,000 in the city are on strike. As a result, there were long queues at ATMs in Bangalore. “People are queuing up in large numbers at ATMs to withdraw as much money before they run out of cash. With heavy withdrawals and no replenishments, most ATMs will turn dry by Thursday night or early Friday,” Mamadapur said. In Hyderabad, too, there were long queues outside the ATMs, some of which ran out of cash in the afternoon and are unlikely to be replenished before Saturday. Said Usha Ramakrishnan, who has an account with the State Bank of India in Delhi: “I was able to withdraw money. But I will have to go to a private bank — ICICI Bank or something — to get a pay order. The kind of trouble we used to face earlier isn’t there now. But it is irritating.” The main demands of the striking staff are wage increase, a better social security net to take care of their post-retirement needs and a proper policy for giving jobs to the family members of deceased or disabled employees on compassionate grounds. The unions have been demanding a 20-percent wage hike, and rejected the offer of 17.5 percent increase made Wednesday by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) that represents the bank managements. The government had asked the unions to hold talks with the bank managements and the chief labour commissioner, but the parleys were inconclusive. “The association is playing with us. When they agreed to 17.5 percent hike initially, they brought in another clause that the pension load should be borne equally,” said N.S. Virk, vice president the All India Bank Officers’ Association. “This is after they signed a memorandum of understanding,” he said.
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Right to Strike Under Industrial Dispute Act, 1947 Introduction Every right comes with its own duties. Most powerful rights have more duties attached to them. Today, in each country of globe whether it is democratic, capitalist, socialist, give right to strike to the workers. But this right must be the weapon of last resort because if this right is misused, it will create a problem in the production and financial profit of the industry. This would ultimately affect the economy of the country. Today, most of the countries, especially India, are dependent upon foreign investment and under these circumstances it is necessary that countries who seeks foreign investment must keep some safeguard in there respective indu... TU Figures Belie Govt Claims On Industrial Strikes The issue of industrial relations during the Nineties has pitted the government claims against those of trade union leaders. According to a PTI report on Thursday, the government claimed that there has been a significant improvement in industrial relations during the Nineties compared to the Eighties with cases of strikes and lockouts registering a steep fall. A review of data on work stoppages arising out of industrial disputes reveals a significant improvement in industrial relations scenario during the Nineties as compared to the Eighties, labour ministry sources told the PTI. Stating that strikes and lockouts have shown not only a declining trend but also a steep fall, they said the number of such disputes dipped from 1,825 during 1990 to 555 during 2001. The total number of strikes and lockouts has also declined . While in the public sector, the number dropped drastically from 628 during 1990 to a paltry 112 during 2001, the private sector witnessed a perceptible drop in industrial disputes from 1,197 during 1990 to 443 during 2001, according to government. Attributing the improvement in the industrial relations to harmonious atmosphere conducive to higher investment and growth, officials said the new economic policy has brought about positive changes in the post-reform era. Credit also went to both the management and the workers for this, they said. 6
Official claims were,disputed by the Centre of Industrial Trade Unions (Citu), which is affiliated to the CPM. In a press release, Citu said the government claim is based on data that is at best a quick estimate. Quoting the Shimla-based Labour Bureau, the union said, "the number of workers involved in strike/lockouts during 1991 was 13.42 lakh, as against 14.18 lakh during 2000. The number of mandays lost also increased from 26.43 million in 1991 to 28.76 million." The government is "conspicuously hiding this aspect of the data,"
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Analysis Of Strikes and Lockouts In 1990, 1,825 strikes and lockouts were recorded. As a result, 24.1 million workdays were lost, from which 10.6 million were lost to strikes and 13.5 million to lockouts. More than 1.3 million workers were involved in these labor disputes. The number and seriousness of strikes and lockouts have varied from year to year. As can be seen from the below chart, there has been a steep decline in the number of strikes and lockouts. This continuous decline in strikes and lockouts indicates that the industrial relations in India are improving. There were 227 strikes in 2005, resulting in the loss of 10.81 million man-days, while the number of lockouts stood at 229 with a loss of 18.86 million man-days. In January-September 2006, there were only 154 strikes and 192 lockouts across the country, as compared to the statistics of 2005, which resulted in the time loss of 3.16 million man-days and 10.60 million man-days respectively.
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The number of strikes and lockouts, taken together, was down by 4.4 per cent in 2005. During 2005, West Bengal experienced the maximum instances of strikes and lockouts (19216) followed by Kerala (3619) and Rajasthan (19247). Industrial disturbances were concentrated mainly in manufacturing (textile), financial intermediation, agriculture and mining and quarrying industries during 2005.
During 2000, 426 strikes and 325 lockouts were observed which resulted in total time-loss of 28.76 million mandays. Maximum time-loss was caused by 297 lockouts during 2003 which resulted in a time-loss of 27.05 million mandays. As compared to previous years, in 2006 only 13.76 million mandays were lost due to strikes and lockouts.
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