In a major outbreak of industrial violence following the death of a trade union leader, a top official of a ceramic company in Yanam, a small enclave of Puducherry in Andhra Pradesh, was killed by workers at his residence here on Friday.
The workers went on the rampage after their leader M.S. Murali Mohan was killed in police action outside the factory. A group went to the house of president (Operations) of Regency Ceramics Limited K. C. Chandrasekhar and attacked him, resulting in serious head injuries.
Trouble had been brewing in the factory since January 2, with more than 800 contract workers staging protests daily demanding that the services of senior workers be regularised and wages revised.
Mr. Mohan, leading these protests, went to the factory at 6 a.m. on Friday and tried to obstruct workers going for the morning shift. Police personnel attacked him with batons, resulting in chest injuries. He collapsed and was rushed to hospital, where he died.
As news of his death spread, workers started destroying the company's assets. Dividing themselves into groups, they first targeted buses being run for students of the Regency Institute of Technology, dousing them with petrol and setting them ablaze. Another group went to Mr. Chandrasekhar's house and attacked him. He was shifted to a corporate hospital at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, where he died.
A group of workers barged into the factory and torched lorries laden with ceramic tiles and two-wheelers belonging to the regular employees. In all, 50 lorries and 10 buses, besides dozens of two-wheelers, were destroyed.
As the situation went out of control, the police resorted to batoncharge and mobs retaliated by throwing stones. The police opened several rounds of fire, resulting in bullet injuries to nine workers. The workers were rushed to the Government General Hospital at Kakinada. Their condition was said to be stable.
Meanwhile, hundreds of local residents rushed to the factory and the college and looted computers, tables, chairs and ceramic tiles. In the melee, the nearby warehouse of a gas agency was also ransacked, and people made away with 416 refill cylinders.
The police were rushed from Kakinada to restore normality and senior police officials of Puducherry rushed to Yanam.
Prohibitory orders were imposed in the town and a holiday was declared for educational institutions.
Regency Ceramics is the biggest industry in Yanam, which is situated about 30 km from Kakinada and has a population of over 42,000. The company employs 1,200 workers and has an annual turnover of Rs. 250 crore.
Keywords: Labour unrest, Yanam police firing, Regency Ceramics
Never occur like Yanam incidents in our history. In the name of workers problems, political parties raised this problem to the level of demolishing the factory assests. This is too much. From this incident both factory management and workers union take lessons. Main fault is with factory management because from the beginning to suppresses workers union formation. This one is very bad. According to Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Act, 2005, formation of workers union is illegal. Yanam factory management badly followed it. This attitude is condemnable:
The growth of a nation is based on the growth of the status of living of the citizen. The growth of a citizen is achieved only either by agriculture or by industry. Any other means is not productive. If govt. is not capable of maintaining Law and order they should move out and give it to the right person . The present mentality of any employee is that he wants maximum remuneration to render minimum work and unions are there to support this cause indirectly. The agriculture is already in ruins and industry is on the way. Will the govt. wake up? No invester will comeforth - beware.
The country is burning and people talk about punishing the victims. The British used to talk about Indians this way a century ago....Look where that got them.
The ground reports claim that the Union leader was brutally murdered outside the factory, and he being a Dalit and the region being at unease with the recent desecration of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar statues, the whole community got ignited with the death of the Union leader.Probe has been ordered to unearth the miscreants behind the murder of the company`s president. The focus should be on the death of the Union leader as it has lead to sorry state of the company with huge loss of assets.
But the main cause was the death of their leader not because of the failed negotiations, the company can claim their insurance and set up another business, but what about the 1200 families dependent on the company, they loose their financial support of this incident.
This is the way we practice our so called democratic rights. Not only
the demonstrating employees but also the common citizens nearby have
taken law in to their hands and stand as conspirators for the
untoward incidents of brutal murder, looting, damages and arson. Can
the trade union leaders and the human right activists in the country
make good the loss caused to the human life and property? Strong
political will and strict action is required to prevent such
incidents anywhere in the country in the future.
The net loss to the company now is manifold times higher than what it would have taken if it agreed to demands for survival of the workers. In free markets, corporates thrive only if they take along the stakeholders. Its never a bad decision to incorporate representatives from workers in top management. Erring enterprises in free markets, learn lessons too, occasionally, the hard way.
The workers' fate of Regency Ceramic will face retrenchment and the unit can be closed down by the management while taking away the factory to another green pasture. Those who indulged in the arson and looting of the factory assets should be punished severely and be sent to jail throwing out from the employment without benefits.
Book Rajahmundry MP Harsha Kumar with the death of Sri Chndrasekhar. He was behind the scenes villain for inciting people. Till he put hands in this affair for his personal gain, no untoward thing happened there. Because of this immature politician more than 800 families are on the streets.
It raises some serious questions - 1.Why did the police wait for Mr
Mohali to obstruct workers before intervening. If the agitating
workers had intentions of enforcing a strike surely the police must
have known about it? The why wait till the trouble starts before
stopping it? 2.How reliable is the report? Was Mr Mohali aggressively obstructing and threatening other workers, or was he simply pleading and standing in their way? Was he alone or did he have a large retinue? 3.On using physical (and as it turns out, deadly) force the police should have realized that violence was almost imminent if the union leader was unable to recover or if other leaders intervened. Why weren't company officials given protection? Specially the dead gentleman, since he had been involved in negotiations with these workers for a long time? Or Company assets protected? Seems the vandalism went on for a long time. This also isn't the first time that the Company has been targeted.
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