Dunlop Panel May Hold Talks With Unions

The three-member interim panel at Dunlop India Ltd is expected to approach the unions for talks to discuss ways to tide over the current crisis facing the company.

A union source told Business Standard: The panel members are expected to arrive and talk to us as soon as Godhwani and Rao return from Dubai, where they are believed to have gone to discus matters with Manu Chhabria. In the meanwhile, representatives from the Ambattur union of the company will be coming to Calcutta today to hold talks with the other unions here.

The other unions of the company are the All India Dunlop Employees Federation (Aidef) and the two Sahaganj unions, one of which is affiliated to Citu, and the other to Intuc.

 

The representatives of all the unions will be holding a meeting on February 20, and chalk out a plan of action. According to the union source, production in the Sahaganj unit has further deteriorated within one week. Last week production was around 30 per cent, this week it has gone down to around 15 per cent. The reason for this is we are not getting materials to work on. barely one or two lorries are bringing in the materials and some of the lorries have been held up at the Ichchapuran border. As a result, work in the steel cord belting division has come to a complete halt, said the union source.

He added that only aero and OTR tyres are being manufactured in the Sahaganj factory. The production of aero tyres is around 100 units per day and the production of OTR tyres is around 25 units per day.

Earlier, the unions had approached the chief minister Jyoti Basu requesting him to intervene, and Basu was supposed to have taken up the Dunlop issue with the union finance minister P Chidambaram on February 17. Basus office has not yet contacted the unions regarding this matter. The unions had also met the state Labour secretary V Subramanium.