Eight years of struggle has not dented the morale of the hundred-odd employees of Comtrust Weaving Factory at Mananchira here. In the wake of the Industrial Disputes Tribunal regional office asking the management to reopen the factory as early as possible, the staff are demanding that the State government acquire the property.
Meanwhile, the board of directors of the factory is meeting on Monday to discuss the tribunal order. M.G. Gopinath, executive director, said: “We have just had a copy of the order. The directors will soon take a call on it.”
“The management is unlikely to reopen the factory,” E.C. Satheesan, general secretary of the employees union affiliated to the All-India Trade Union Congress, said on Sunday.
“We want the government to take it over and run it.” The Bill passed by the Assembly for the purpose was stuck in the bureaucratic logjam in New Delhi, he pointed out. “Without waiting for the President’s approval, the government should acquire it.”
He said various trade union representatives would meet soon to chalk out the future course of action. Mr. Satheesan, who is also the general convener of the joint action committee of trade unions, exuded confidence that the factory would be able to make a mark in the market with government support. “We are confident that the products we manufacture will have a space in the market. When the factory was closed down, 80% of our orders were from the international market. Apart from focussing on that, we can also cater to big cities in the country,” he said.
Management in dilemma
It is learnt that the management is caught in a dilemma. Sources said that if they want to challenge the tribunal order in the court, they would have to pledge the pending remuneration of the employees as a surety. If they choose not to go for an appeal, they would have to give salary and other benefits from 2009 till recently. Event if the government takes it over, the remuneration till the date on which the Assembly passed the Bill to acquire it will have to be disbursed.
Forty per cent of the shares of the company are with the confidential staff of the factory, 30% with Canara Bank; 20% are with a welfare trust run by the employees, and the rest belong to the agencies who procure products from the factory. The tribunal ordered reopening of the factory saying that the decision to close it down was taken abruptly.
Any factory having more than 100 employees on the rolls will have to give a two-months notice before the closure. This provision was apparently violated as the factory had over 300 employees when it was closed down.
