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Unions reject Dunlop revival plan, demand unpaid wages

Rakesh Kumar Dubey in Calcutta

Dunlop India's efforts to reopen its factories by submitting a fresh revival scheme to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction have received a setback. Labour unions have flatly rejected the proposals and said until workers are paid their due wages, no progress can be made.

The union representatives in a tripartite meeting with the management and labour commissioner in Calcutta on Tuesday also declined to approve a proposal for sale of movable property of the company.

Unions said that they were principally against the proposal since workers had no faith in the chairman, M R Chhabria. Moreover, the Supreme Court had issued an order banning sale of property by the management.

The labour commissioner has advised the company to first pay the due wages from November 1997 to February 7, 1998 to the workers of Saharganj factory and also to the employees of company's headquarters at Wallace House which have not been paid since May, 1998, before submitting or getting approval for any new revival proposals.

Incidentally, any revival proposal by the management of the company which has already been declared a sick unit, to the BIFR required approval from the workers, the state government and the bankers. But workers' unions have alleged that they had no information whatsoever about the scheme being submitted to the BIFR by the management. The unions were provided a copy of the scheme after the meeting.

West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu had a meeting a few days back with Dunlop representatives, including whole-time director Komal C Wazir, daughter of M R Chhabria. Basu has advised them to get the approval of the bankers and workers first before seeking the government's support for the revised scheme.

The tripartite meeting is considered necessary for getting approval of the bankers. The management also argued that they had no fund to pay the arrears which amounted to Rs 35 million per month as banks were not willing to provide further funds.

To this point, it was reported that the labour commissioner advised the management not to takeover the company if they can not arrange Rs 100 million for payment of arrear wages.

UNI

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