Birla Tyres Ltd.

Lockout Lifted: Kesoram Industries Ltd has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that the lockout at its Balasore factory in Indias Orissa state has been lifted. As of 6am on August 3 operations recommenced at the facility. A company spokesperson reported that almost 90 per cent of workers returned to work for the first shift. Tyre production restarted on August 4, 2010. The lockout was declared on July 16 after the company reported that workers were forcibly squalling inside the factory premises of the said section in an illegal manner. B.K. Birla group company Kesoram Industries stated that the illegal assembly and law and order situation compelled it to declare the lockout. The workmen of Birla Tyres Section at Balasore in Orissa, a unit of the company, have resorted to an illegal strike from A shift of July 15, 2010. In spite of advice of the District Administration and the Labour Department of Orissa, the employees were forcibly squatting inside the factory premises of the said Section in an illegal manner. In view of this, the management was forced to declare a lock out at the said Section with effect from B shift 14.00 hrs. on July 16, 2010. The lifting of the lockout was sequel to the Government of Odisha declaring the strike and lock-out of Birla Tyres Illegal. The State Government in Department of Labour & Employment (DOLE) announced this and the company lifted the lockout. After the management declared lock out, then Labour Commissioner Vir Vikaram Yadav initiated talks with the both Management and Labour Union.

After repeated attempts made by Mr.Yadav, dispute remained unresolved. Sudarasan Pal Thakur, Commissioner-cum-Secretary DOLE took up discussion with the authorities of Birla Tyres and Labour Union.

However the company officials and Labour Union leaders stuck to their guns. So talks on impasse failed once again.

Puspendra Singh Deo, Minister Labour & Employment also took up another round of talk with the Management and Union. Talk held in presence of Mr.Thakur and Mr.Yadav. Deepak Tandon, Director Birla Tyres and Labour Union leader Rajendra Bal participated in the talks. Talks could not make any headway as Labour Union leader Mr.Bal was adamant in his approach. Therefore the State Government has declared both strike and lock out Illegal. The Factory was reopened with full police presence. Set up in 1991, the plant had started its first commercial production in March 1992 and now employed about 5,000 regular and contract labours. The company which produces automobile tyres, tubes and flaps had experienced remarkable leap from a turnover of Rs 1947.22 crore in 20082009 to Rs 2849.61 crore in 2009-2010. Volvo Bus Bangalore Strike Over 600 employees at Volvo Buses India Pvt Ltd, an Indian subsidiary of Swedish bus maker Volvo Bus Corporation, have launched an indefinite strike at their plant at Hoskote, about 35 km from Bangalore. The workers of the two-year-old bus plant are demanding confirmation of temporary employees and reinstatement of those who were suspended in April this year, in addition to wage hike. The go-slow, that started about three months ago, demanding a wage hike among other issues, has caused a loss of close to Rs 50 crore to the management and the company reportedly has lost production of over 60 buses according to news reports. This is the first strike in Volvos bus plant in India.

Volvo Buses India Pvt Ltd is a joint venture between Volvo Bus Corporation of Sweden and Azad Group of Bangalore. Volvo holds a 70 per cent stake in the joint venture. The factory started operations in January 2008. According to the company, it has held several rounds of talks on the charter of demands. However, discussions have reached a deadlock since the union now seeks to link these discussions to revoking the suspension of four employees who were suspended last April for misconducts of go slow and sabotage. The suspension was linked to an act of misconduct, which is grave in nature; wherein certain employees used physical force against their managers, including the unit head, an expatriate. Thereon, they kept these managers hostage for eight hours into the wee hours of the night, without food and water, the company said. The company has taken a hard line to send a message to the workers that it will not tolerate any action that put the lives of any officers in jeopardy or there was a threat to the equipment or personnel in the premises. The company has also refused to withdraw the suspension as the enquiries are in progress and is of the opinion that the law should take its own course. According to Volvo Buses Workers Union, the management has not been responding to their demands. Several temporary workers have been awaiting probation, and probationary workers have been waiting to be made permanent for the past two years. The company has not acted on the unions demands according to the Union. Labour Woes: Tamil Nadu Sizzles: Coming on the heels of the agitations in some of the major companies like Hyundai, MRF, Nokia, it is reported that the company ATC Tyres, which has a plant in Tirunelvelli District of Tamil Nadu has been closed down for more than a month following labour unrest. Similarly, a Japanese auto component vendor Yazaki Wiring Technologies facility has also been served by a strike notice.

According to the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) State Secretary R. Karumalaiyan workers were asked by the company to work on a 12-hour shift. It was later reduced to nine hours. The wage per day was Rs.120 while wage rate under the rural employment guarantee scheme was Rs.100. He stated that the company did not have any permanent worker on its rolls though the total work force employed at its factory was around 700. At Yazaki Wiring Technologies, the dispute is over the workers charter of demands and it is reported that the company was in an expansion mode supplying to Ford India and others. There were around 700 workers out of whom only around 90 were permanent. A worker who had put in 12 years of service in the company was getting a salary of around Rs.5, 800. The company wanted the worker to earn more through production incentives according to the union. It is reported that the Tamil Nadu Government is toying with the idea of bringing forth a law as prevailing in Maharashtra to avoid the problems that the state is facing with many of the employers refusing to recognize the union of their choice. States like Maharashtra, West Bengal and Kerala have passed a law for companies to recognise trade unions. There is an amendment to the Industrial Standing Orders Act also being done that prescribes the ratio of permanent to contract workers in a factory according to Mr. S. Kumarasami, state president of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU). The Works Committee under the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, have not been able to provide an alternative to the management of companies that have been in the throes of inter union rivalry or deal with the problems of external leadership not acceptable to the company managements. The state government in April announced the setting up of a committee to study the experiences of other states in passing a law to make trade union recognition compulsory by corporations. But trade unionists termed the move as an election gimmick, in a state that goes to the polls next year. NUSI Initiative: Demands Permanency for Seamen:

The National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) has taken up the cause of the seafarers who work on contract between trips and are unemployed after they are discharged from duty of the ships they work in. There has been a dip in the business caused by the downturn and the number of jobs has come down. On the other hand, the supply of labour keeps increasing and it means that fewer jobs are going around and these employees get no additional benefits. Even the Provident Fund meant for the Seafarers were misappropriated and it was NUSI that was in the forefront of the move to get the Government to ensure that the hard earned money of the seafarers were not lost permanently. Mr. Abdul Ghani Serang, the Secretary General of NUSI stated that seamen got no benefits like VRS that the land based industry paid their employees. The Indian National Shipping Association (INSA) has not responded to the demands, though they have received the representation made by NUSI. Labour Acts: Amendments on Cards: According to news reports, some major changes are in line with respect to some of the labour enactments. The Provident Fund Act is proposing to do away with assured pension in favour of an annuity scheme. With the annuity structure, pension would depend on the corpus accumulated by an account holder. In case of Employees Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme, the EPFO was planning to introduce group scheme and separate pension. This will result in higher insurance coverage which is limited to a maximum of Rs. 1 lakh now. The Government is also contemplating amendment to the Apprentices Act of 1961 to revise significantly the stipends to make it more attractive to individuals to sign up for becoming apprentices. There is also a move afoot to amend the Act to compel an employer to absorb 50% of the apprentices. This move has not gone down well with the employers, who do not want an additional liability, particularly when the business is not doing well. The task force on remodeling the apprenticeship regime, appointed at the behest of the Prime Ministers National Council on Skill Development in 2009 had suggested two key measures to make corporate India more enthusiastic about the Apprenticeship Training Scheme. It wanted the penal

provisions such as imprisonment to be restricted only to proven willful defaulters in serious violations. Furthermore, it suggested that for firms with operations in more than four stats that currently have to seek state by state approval for hiring apprentices, the central government should be the implementing authority. Amendment of definition of workmen under Industrial Disputes Act: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour had in its report on the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Bill 2009 submitted in Parliament last December, recommended that the Government bring out a list of highly paid jobs like pilots, flight engineers would be excluded from the definition of workmen on the salary criteria as they were very highly paid and deserved to be excluded from the definition of workmen. The absence of protection of the ID Act would also make them more responsible and not take recourse to flash strikes that inconvenience the traveling public. Bringing Hotels Under the Factories Act: There is also a proposal being moved to bring the Hotels under the provisions of the Factories Act so that the provisions of lay-off, retrenchment and closure would also apply to them. Being covered under the Shops Act, gave them liberty to close down and thus the workmen employed in these hotels were adversely affected. The coverage under the Factories Act would also enable the employees to earn overtime, restrict the number of hours they would work and issues of nonpayment of wages, arrears, overtime, leave wages, non-observance of working hours, maintenance of registers, etc. would become mandatory.