T H E E C O N O M I C W E E K L Y August 3, 1957

Labour Unrest in the Public Sector S D Punekar

LABOUR In the public sector appears to be on the war-path.

Bombay municipal workers, who were appeased on the br ink of strike on 24th June, went on a lightening strike on 13th July. The threatened strike of Bombay dock workers was averted at the zero hour, after granting them certain concessions by the Central Communications Ministry. Labour unrest, however, appears to be a highly contagious disease and it has spread rapidly to other sectors of public economy. Strike decisions have been taken by the all-India employees' unions in Posts and Telegraphs, Civil Aviation, Income-tax, Audit and Accounts, Central P .W.D, Overseas Communi­cations and Central Tractor Orga­nisation. If these threats materialise, more than half a million of Central Government employees will be affec­ted. Discontent has already been shown among the railwaymen and bank and insurance employees. W i t h a l i t t le persuasion, they may join what may be called the conflagration in the public .sector.

Is it a mere coincidence that this acute labour unrest in the public sector has come to the surface at a time when the Plan faces a serious financial crisis? Both the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister have declared a financial emergency and appealed to the public to co­operate w i th the Government to secure maximum monetary resources to save the Plan and consequently the nation. The response of the Government employees to this appeal is to make more and more wage demands on the Government, whose finances are already at the lowest ebb. The employees' unions have asked for the appointment of a second Pay Commission, interim increase in dearness allowance and merger of dearness allowance wi th pay. These demands are thus large­ly monetary in character.

If the response of the workers in the short strikes of Bombay muni­cipal and dock workers is taken as a guide, there is no doubt that strikes, if and when declared, w i l l command a large majority of emp­loyees. Indian labour is notoriously fond of l i t igation and of strikes. Experience in the labour field shows that workers, who usually fa l l to

pay regularly their small union mem­bership dues, co, cribute liberally to a legal fund, raised for l ighting the bonus issue in a labour court. Simi­larly, it is not unusual in this coun­t ry for a union wi th low member-ship to declare a strike and take out workers from their jobs. It is not without significance that an un­recognised union proved to be the sole champion of the Bombay muni­cipal employees in the recent, strug­gle. Often the workers resort to strike in the absence of any call from the union oy sometimes in spite of the union's "no strike" directive and the union "adopts" the strike. Loyalty to the union is almost in­variably subservient to the urge to strike and hence even responsible unions and labour leaders find it convenient, to keep the embers smouldering. It is not, therefore a. matter of surprise that the Union Labour Minister who, at the last session of the Indian Labour Con­ference expressed such a horror of wage demands and advocated wage restraint, should also have been urging the Ahmedabad worker in his pre-election speeches to ask for a 25 per cent rise in wages. The In ­dian National Trade Union Congress passed a resolution to this effect. Why Unhappy Industrial Relations?

Labour troubles in the private sector have been attributed to the employer's desire to maximise his profits with minimum resources. It has been claimed that such troubles need not arise in the public sector, where profit motive is absent and there is no lack of resources. Actual experience in India, however, has shown that the public sector has suffered and is suffering from more labour disputes than the private sector. The reasons for such un­happy industrial relations are many.

First, it may not be correct to say that the public sector is not having the profit motive. The State, like Oliver Twist, always asks for more and hence resorts to all means to maximise its revenue.

Second industrial disputes in the public sector have increased, mainly because the sector itself has expand­ed during the last decade. The Bri t ish had followed a convenient laissez faire policy, wi th the result that when the Indians took over in

1947, the public sector in the indus­t r i a l sphere consisted solely of posts and telegraphs, railways, and the ordnance factories. The expansion rate of the public sector since 1947 has been amazing. V i t a l industries like life insurance, civil aviation, shipbuilding and telephones have been nationalised. Government ownership has extended to numerous fields like fertilizers, antibiotics, machine tools, iron and steel, loco­motives, integral coaches, newsprint, cables and cement. The multipur­pose projects, national laboratories and atomic establishments are fresh fields covered by the public sector. The administrative staff has multi­plied itself to cope with the expand­ing activities of the State, the big­gest employer in India. However, expansion of activities has not kept pace wi th the increasing realisation of the value of industrial relations wi th the result that labour unrest in the public sector has increased during the course of the decade.

Exemption from Labour Laws

Third, there has been an increas­ing tendency on the part of Govern­ment factories to get themselves exempted from the operation of labour laws on flimsy pretexts. For

example, many Government estab­lishments have been exempted from the employees' State Insurance Scheme, which is a social security measure. There is often an invi­dious distinction between the emp­loyees of the private sector and those of the public sector, as far as social welfare measures and monetary advantage like bonus are concerned.

Fourth, public sector brings with it impersonal administration, which results in red-tapism, routine delays, lack of proper response and general inefficiency. Most of the evils of the modern industrial system can be attributed to the loss of personal and cordial relations between the manager and the managed.

Fifth, the contribution of the ma­nagerial staff in the public sector to labour unrest is not insignificant. Many of the supervisory staff are no doubt good administrators; they are, however, ignorant either of technical know-how or of personnel administration. The bureaucratic attitude to labour problems has re­sulted In considerable harm. The

1015