7 March, 2012All 100 workers of Spanish multinational company M/s Sarralle Equipment India Pvt Ltd are on sit-in strike from February 8, 2012 against the refusal of jobs to 18 workmen. The workers allege that the Sarralle management is engaging local mafia to break the strike.
INDIA: Sarralle India, a subsidiary of Sarralle Equipos of Spain is one of the largest designers of steel plant equipment, which established its unit in India in 2008. Later it entered into a joint venture with Talleres Jaso Industrial and formed Jaso Sarralle Cranes India.
Workers of Sarralle India formed the union Sarralle Equipment India Pvt Ltd Workmen Union (Regd.No 26158) in August 2011. Workers allege that the company do not respect the workers' right to organize and bargain collectively. The company run its plant with contract workers for many years and they are even deprived of the minimum wages declared by the government. Since the formation of the union, the company started outsourcing jobs that are of regular nature to outside agencies.
The union protested the unfair action and demanded the management to follow due process of law and not to take any unilateral step. As the company intensified outsourcing, on February 7, 2012 the union raised an industrial dispute before the labour commissioner and submitted the charter of demands. In a move to pressurize workers, on the same day the management issued a notice that they do not require the services of 18 workmen due to shortage of order.
Against this anti-worker strategy of the management, all workers went on a spontaneous sit-in strike from February 8. While, industrial dispute has been raised by the union and the labour commissioner called for the tripartite meeting on February 16, the Sarralle management's action to refuse the services of 18 workmen is a violation of Industrial Dispute Act 1947, says Bappi Halder, general secretary of the union.
Immediate demands of the union are:
- Sarralle management should re-instate all the 18 workmen immediately,
- Management shall withdraw the illegal act of putting the permanent workmen on compulsory leave,
- Management shall give the specific assurance of settlement of pending charter of demands, and
- Management shall regularise services of all contract workmen.