The work suspension notice slapped by the management of Dunlop India Limited (DIL) on its mother unit at Sahaganj in Hooghly district “is not a suspension of work, it is a lock-out,” the State leadership of the Centre of Trade Unions of India (CITU) said here on Sunday.
The management slapped the work suspension notice on Saturday – a decision that will affect the over 700 workers at the unit. The company claimed that recent agitations by the workers were the reason for the decision. The management has also alleged that workers are stealing materials from the factory site. “The management is merely using the worker's agitation as an excuse to pressure the workers. They have no intention of carrying on operations at the factory and they want to take out the materials from the factory,” said general secretary of the CITU for West Bengal Kali Ghosh.
Mr. Ghosh said that from the manner in which the management had been carrying out operations over the past five years it had become clear that it was neither interested nor competent to run the factory. “They only want to sell the materials that may be there at the unit and then later sell the land as well to be developed as real estate,” Mr. Ghosh alleged.
He said that workers had not been paid for two months and the resulting agitation “was used as an excuse to impose this lock-out.”
State president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress Pradip Bhattacharya also condemned the decision taken by the management. The government has convened a meeting with the company in which Labour Minister Purnendu Bose and Industries Minister Partha Chatterjee will participate.
