At the other end of the spectrum, the well-organised bank employees are gearing up for an all-India strike on 12 June. This follows a breakdown of talks with the Indian Bank Association (IBA), the apex body of bankers. The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), representing nine unions and one million employees, has rejected an offer of a 15 per cent rise in wages that would cost the industry Rs 4,125 crore. This is not the first round; and UFBU has promised it won’t be the last. The bank unions struck work on 24 and 25 September last year. And they have promised to repeat a two-day work stoppage later, too, if the 12 June strike does not deliver the goods.

Labour Disputes On The Rise
Over the past four-six months, there has been a steady increase in the number of labour disputes and flash strikes. With no previous history of strikes, Nestle’s 4,300 workers in four units stopped work for a day on 19 January. More recently, its Pantnagar unit has been through a few shutdowns. Auto companies Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) in Nashik and Hyundai in Chennai have gone through a couple of weeks of strikes and lockouts last month. MRF’s Arakkonam unit was paralysed for most of May. In the public sector, besides bank employees, thousands of workers and officers of oil companies, MTNL staff and Airport Authority (AAI) have been on the warpath. For those used to the relative calm in industrial relations during the pre-Lehman Brothers boom years, the new employee restiveness has caused some alarm.

OLD GUARD: Militant unionist Datta Samant led strikes that crippled Mumbai in the 1980s (ABP)

In Maharashtra, the most industrialised of the states, the number of strikes and lockouts has been steadily on the increase. More significantly, the number of mandays lost in 2008-09 has nearly doubled to 920,000 from 1,072,000 for the previous year 2007-08.

Government officials admit that labour disputes are on the rise. Says the additional secretary in the Union ministry for labour and employment, S. Krishnan: “Disputes have gone up since 2008, but the data is still being compiled for that period. Figures do not reflect the trend as often disputes are not being reported. Closures are taking place, layoffs are happening, but either workers are accepting it quietly or the units they were working for were very small.”

One reason why disputes do not always show up in figures is that workers have taken to new forms of protest. Strikes, union leaders say, are often used to close down units. Vivek Monteiro, secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (Citu), Maharashtra Chapter, says, “There are some wildcat strikes, but the general environment is not pro-strike yet. The mood is to put pressure on employers to stem the tide.”

NEW TACTICS: IUF’s Franklin |D’Souza believes pressure tactics should not tip the boat (Pic by Subhabrata Das)

The strike was declared illegal on 13 May by the Industrial Court, and the workers returned to work on 18 May with an assurance that the union president would be allowed to resume after normalcy was restored. However, Dhatrak’s suspension has not been revoked, laying the basis for a possible Round 2.

Hyundai Motors in Chennai too saw an 18-day strike during which the company threatened to shift the production of its prestigious i20 brand to Europe. A company spokesman said trouble started on 20 April after a section of workers led by the Citu pressed a 45-point charter of demands that included travel facilities in AC buses despite the fact the average wage scale was around Rs 39,000 per month.