In the case of the auto component unit Pricol in Coimbatore, 294 workers were dismissed in August 2018 after they went on a 100-day strike demanding equitable payment of bonus to all workers and also on some legitimate wage demands. Currently, Nearly 200 workers of the Chennai plant of Asahi, the Japanese auto windscreen multinational, are on strike since 25 March 2019 against unlawful dismissal of 28 workers on 11 October 2018. The unstated reason was that they formed a CITU union. When the workers presented a charter of demands in January 2019,five more workers, including a union office-bearer, were suspended.

When workers of Myoung Shin Automotive India Pvt Ltd (MSI) in Kanchipuram formed a CITU union and went on a strike over their charter of demands in September 2018, the management suspended 10 workers including a trade union office-bearer and dismissed another worker.

The workers of NHK F Krishna Automotive Seating Company in Oragadam, Chennai supplying car seats to Renault Nissan formed a union in early 2016 and two workers were terminated and many more were not allowed to enter the factory even without issuing any formal retrenchment notices to them. When they went on a strike from 12 July 2016,due to supply chain disruption, production at Renault Nissan also came to a grinding halt and despite that in a laudable gesture of solidarity the Renault Nissan workers also joined the NHK F Krishna workers in the protest.

The Renault Nissan too had dismissed 4 workers in 2014 without any enquiry or show cause notice and when the labour court revoked the dismissals in 2017and ordered full back wages the company went on an appeal against the labour court order in the High Court despite knowing full well that they had very weak grounds to win the appeal. In the same Oragadam area, when the workers formed a CITU union in Yamaha Motors last year the management dismissed a union activist. Some struggling workers of Royal Enfield in Oragadam were also transferred to the Pune plant. The workers of the American PMI Engineering also won a partial victory from the Madras high Court against unlawful dismissals and refusal of work.

The workers achieved a greater victory in the Pricol case where the termination of services of the 294 Pricol workers were not punitive dismissals but bogus termination carried out not even abiding by Section 10(B) of the Industrial Disputed Act (as amended in the State) under which permission of the State government has to be taken if more than 100 workers are to be retrenched. Usually cases challenging dismissals as unlawful go to Labour Court after conciliation and the High Court enters only at the appeal stage against the Labour Court verdict. But though HC staying retrenchment or even dismissals has happened in some cases, it doesn’t happen in all cases, especially issuing a writ against a private party. In that sense, the Pricol case is unusual. Moreover, the Pricol management had first transferred 302 workers to other plants in AP, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand and when the case against transfers was still subjudice they issued this order of dismissal without taking prior permission under Section 31(1)(B).

Clearly, the Pricol management wanted to punish the workers through other means for going on a legal strike on legitimate demands. This brings to mind Justice Krishna Iyer’s landmark judgement in Gujarat Steel Tubes case in which he observed that passive participation in illegal strike need not justify dismissals. He even came out against en masse dismissals saying, “dismissal of several hundred with disastrous impact on numerous families is of such sensitive social concern that, save in exceptional situations, the law will inhibit such a lethal step for the welfare of the workmen and the broader justice that transcends transient disputes”. Hinting that even an illegal strike could be a justified one, he ordered that the workers be taken back to service.

The story of arbitrary dismissals is the same across the country. After the angry outburst of workers in Maruti Suzuki on 18 July 2012, the management responded by firing 546 permanent workers and 1800 contract workers. After Honda Motors and Scooters Ltd. and Maruti, unlawful dismissals were witnessed in the Japanese Daikin Air-Conditioning in Neemrana, Rico Auto in Manesar, Omax in Dharuhera, and in several other units in the Neemrana-Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt.

The Sanad industrial area in Gujarat, the third important automobile belt, also witnessed similar harassment by the managements against struggling workers in Tata Motors, Ford India, Hitachi, Apollo Tyres, Bombardier and Bosch. The next major auto belt of Pune is no exception with Phillips Employees Union filing a writ petition last year against dismissals and companies like Bajaj Auto, Tenneco, Cummins India dismissing permanent workers and replacing them with trainees.

Companies like Maruti-Suzuki and Hyundai have 2 trainees and 4 contract workers for each regularised worker. Inspite of that the evil temptation to retrench some permanent workers and replace them with the workers under the newly introduced fixed-term contract category or under NEEM is quite widespread. Such being the sad reality of industrial relations in the country, the labour jurisprudence in the country has not risen to the occasion to curb misuse of the powers of dismissals and retrenchment by the employers. It is high time the labour movement comes up with proposals for additional safeguards besides the State-level amendments like Section 10(B) against unlawful dismissals and campaign for them. (IPA Service)