Dunlop workers block road after termination of 13

D unlop India workers backed by Trinamool Congress (TMC) activists today blocked the Katwa-Bandel railway line for more than an hour besides creating a road block on the Grand Trunk Road, the arterial road connecting Kolkata with the Howrah and Hooghly districts, as the company decided to terminate the services of 13 workers.

Dunlop India Ltd(DIL) decided to terminate the services of 13 workers after they were issued show-cause notices and suspended from work earlier. "The reply to the show-cause notice was not satisfactory to the management", informed a company spokesperson. He added that these workers had been involved in manhandling DIL's industrial relations manager, Ashok Singh, during the time of suspension of work at Dunlop's Sahagunj factory, apart from ransacking the house of another employee, B Guhaneogi, recently.

The company claimed that these 13 workers had also tried to block the factory gates and bar other workers from getting inside the premises before the suspension of work started.

DIL had suspended work after the management had failed to arrive at an agreement with the employees' unions on an across-the-board wage cut and production shutdown in the wake of the economic meltdown and paucity of working capital. The company spokesperson informed that work was suspended between November 30, 2008 and March 6 this year.

"Around 50 to 60 people participated in today's agitation. Of them we estimate that not more than 25 were Dunlop employees", he added.

The terminated workers were employed in the off-the-road tyres(OTR) and truck tyres divisions of DIL.

The company is yet to start production, and has not fixed a deadline for that either. "Refurbishment and repair work of the factory is on," said the spokesperson.

Centre for Indian Trade Unions(CITU) secretary Kali Ghosh alleged that DIL's conduct was doubtful and that it tried to mislead workers. "We are not in favour of any lay-offs. But, as such the company did not consult us in this case", Ghosh said. CITU, however, is not planning to go in for an agitation on site.

"We sincerely doubt when production can resume at the Sahagunj plant", he said, claiming that the start of production was driven by political considerations rather than pure economic reasons. Dunlop does not have a TMC-backed union. It only has CITU and INTUC-affiliated trade unions.