The Hindu : Business : Talks fail to make headway at Dunlop

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Talks fail to make headway at Dunlop

Special Correspondent

Unions keen on tripartite meeting; Ruia holds another round of talks with Govt

KOLKATA: Efforts to resolve the Dunlop issue through dialogues failed to make headway on Tuesday, even as the trade unions met State Labour Minister Mrinal Banerjee, and company Chairman Pawan Ruia held another round of talks with the State Government.

Mr. Ruia met officials in the Chief Minister’s Secretariat and the Finance Department besides Mr. Banerjee. The discussions revolved around the sales tax incentives that Dunlop has sought from the State government.

Earlier, talking to reporters after his meeting with the representatives of the trade unions, Mr. Banerjee said the unions were keen on a tripartite meeting. “We will also try for such a meeting,” he said.

Leaders from the three major trade unions, the INTUC, the CITU and the AITUC, said that they had apprised the minister of the developments at Sahagunj and had shared the apprehensions of the workers who felt that even their subsistence wages might be stopped abruptly. “Our confidence in Mr. Ruia has been eroded,” they said.

The Sahagunj unit of Dunlop (considered the mother unit) was thrown into turmoil since last week when Mr. Ruia asked its 1,179 workers to stay at home and accept subsistence wages of Rs. 2,000 each a month.

In a meeting with Mr. Banerjee on Monday, he said that this measure was only a temporary one which was being forced by shortage of working capital funds from banks.

Alongside submitting a Rs. 100-crore loan application with the State’s nodal industry promotion agency, he is also pressing for some concessions.

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