The Instrumentation Workers' Union affiliated to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) will serve strike notice on Wednesday to the management of Instrumentation Limited at Kanjikode, near here, in protest against the decision of the management to shift production of small control valves from the Palakkad unit to the Kota unit.
The union headed by M. Chandran, MLA, in their strike notice to the general manager said ‘‘the manufacturing technology of control valves at the Palakkad unit has been made indigenous with rigorous efforts from the employees for more than 35 years. The decision of the management to shift these products overnight to the Kota unit by issuing a circular is aimed at destroying the Palakkad unit. This will be fought with all might of the employees here.''
The notice said similar moves earlier with regard to defence products had ultimately ended up with the product vanishing from the product range of the company, both at Palakkad and Kota. The same would be the fate of the present decision.
The union demanded an end to fund transfer from the Palakkad unit to the loss making Kota unit. ‘‘Because of the Rs.20-crore taken away from the Palakkad unit last year, there is shortage of working capital here. The payments to suppliers are unduly delayed. Input material cost is going up because of this and suppliers are moving away from the company,'' the union said.
The union also demanded that the management settle the 1997 wage arrears issue and regularise temporary employees as per the agreement chalked out with the union.
