Paharpur Cooling Towers Under Lockout

Paharpur Cooling Towers (P) Ltd management declared a lock-out at its Calcutta factory on Wednesday morning. We have been forced to take this decision as some of the workers were obstructing despatches of goods from the plant for quiet some time and had resorted to a go-slow, said Gaurav Swarup, deputy managing director.

The management, in a press release yesterday confirmed that it had taken out finished goods from the plant under police supervision on Tuesday night. We had secured a court order fearing intervention by the union members, Swarup said. The plant employs nearly 200 workers, he said. There was a lockout at the plant in September last year over bonus which was lifted a month later.

The companys latest plant under construction at Kandla, Gujarat, is scheduled to commence operations next month.

Earlier, Paharpur Cooling Towers Mazdoor Sabha in a press release declared the lockout as illegal and an attempt to crush the democratic struggle of workers. The lockout will affect 350 workers, the release said. Nearly 200 workers at the Bhasa unit in Bishnupur have been retrenched from May 12, 1997. The management had also closed two plants at Gaziabad in January the press release said. But management sources denied this saying that there was no lockout at the Bhasa unit and the cooling tower and flexible packaging plant at Ghaziabad was functioning normally.

There has been no outstanding issues at the Calcutta factory and we had come to an informal settlement on the workers charter of demand and a three year agreement was to be signed last week, but the union is dragging its feet, Swarup said.

The union has sought the intervention of chief minister Jyoti Basu, state home minister and labour minister to settle the matter. The executive committee of the Central Union of Paharpur Employees of West Bengal and Shahibabad will meet here this week to chalk out a further course of action.