Lock-out the latest problem for Dunlop India plant
Dunlop India Ltd has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange of its decision to suspend operations at the company’s Sahaganj factory. In a lengthy letter outlining the various problems the company has faced at this factory since acquiring the tyre manufacturing business in 2005, Sahaganj plant manager M A Khan said it is no longer “possible to keep the factory open, continue to make payment of unproductive wages to idle workers and take risk for the safety and security of [the] plant and its employees.”
A lock-out at the Sahaganj plant thus came into effect on the morning of October 8. Speaking on behalf of Dunlop India, Khan said vandalism carried out by some workers and “outside miscreants” was a major factor influencing the decision to halt production, and he also noted that the company’s negotiations with workers’ unions “turned out to be futile.” The representatives of at least one union claim other reasons lie behind the decision, however.
General secretary of the Centre of Trade Unions of India in West Bengal, Kali Ghosh, told the Hindu newspaper that “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…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.”
Dunlop India has not indicated when production will resume and says the period of suspension is being treated as a “no work no pay” stoppage.
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