Bombay Textiles Mill Case

8/8/2019 Bombay Textiles Mill Case

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The Great Bombay

Textile Mills StrikeA Case presentation


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Collective Bargaining

According to Dale Yoder, Collective bargaining is the term used to describe a

situation in which the essential conditions of employment are determined by

bargaining process undertaken by representatives of a group of workers on the

one hand and of one or more employers on the other.

In the words of Flippo, Collective bargaining is a process in which the

representatives of a labour organisation and the representatives of business

organisation meet and attempt to negotiate a contract or agreement, which

specifies the nature of employee-employer-union relationship.


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Features of Collective

Bargaining It is a collective process. The representatives of both workers

and management participate in bargaining.

It is a continuous process. It establishes regular and stablerelationship between the parties involved. It involves not onlythe negotiation of the contract, but also the administration ofthe contract.

It is a flexible and dynamic process. The parties have toadopt a flexible attitude through the process of bargaining.

It is a method ofpartnership of workers in management


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Importance of Collective BargainingImportance to employees

Collective bargaining develops a sense of self respect and responsibility among theemployees.

It increases the strength of the workforce, thereby, increasing their bargainingcapacity as a group.

Collective bargaining increases the morale and productivity of employees.

It restricts managements freedom for arbitrary action against the employees.Moreover, unilateral actions by the employer are also discouraged.

Effective collective bargaining machinery strengthens the trade unions movement.

The workers feel motivated as they can approach the management on variousmatters and bargain for higher benefits.

It helps in securing a prompt and fair settlement of grievances. It provides a flexiblemeans for the adjustment of wages and employment conditions to economic andtechnological changes in the industry, as a result of which the chances for conflictsare reduced.


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Importance of Collective BargainingImportance to employers

It becomes easier for the management to resolve issues at thebargaining level rather than taking up complaints of individualworkers.

Collective bargaining tends to promote a sense of job securityamong employees and thereby tends to reduce the cost of laborturnover to management.

Collective bargaining opens up the channel of communicationbetween the workers and the management and increases workerparticipation in decision making.

Collective bargaining plays a vital role in settling and preventingindustrial disputes.


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Importance of Collective BargainingImportance to society

Collective bargaining leads to industrial peace in the country

It results in establishment of a harmonious industrial climatewhich supports which helps the pace of a nations effortstowards economic and social development since theobstacles to such a development can be reducedconsiderably.

The discrimination and exploitation of workers is constantlybeing checked.

It provides a method or the regulation of the conditions ofemployment of those who are directly concerned about them.


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The Plight

The workers lost and the managements won. Many workers committed suicide.Many went to their native places and never returned. Many children went hungry fordays and God didn't do anything. God was on the management side that day andeven today he is on their side. ~Pandurang Laxman Salvi, 57


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A stigma was attached to our names forever


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Datta Samant-The Black sheep? He was one of the most prominent union

leaders of his time.

Had the reputation for putting workers and theirinterests before politics.

Grew increasingly militant in his politicalconvictions and activism.

Chosen as their leader by a large group of Mumbai mill workers.


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A strike was declared in the middle of January,

followed immediately by a lockout on the part of the owners,

in an attempt to force the men back to work unconditionally.

35 rupees for men; 17 rupees for womenfor a ten-hour day.

The textile workers of Bombay died in the streets from starvation.

The British Labor Government and the British Labor

Party have permitted the striking and locked-out millhands of Bombay to die in the streets from starvation,

to be shot down by the rifles of armed police and

military, without using their supreme power as head

of the British Empire to bring this strike to an end and to

secure victory to the just demands of the Bombay

workers.


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SUGGESTIONSSUGGESTIONS

Unbiased attitude towards selection of trade union.

Providing proper bonus and wage increment.

Providing proper working conditions to the workers.

Collective Bargaining.

Open Communication

(From Managements point of view)


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They shouldnt have formed new trade union illegally under

the supervision ofDatta Samant.

More scope of mediation.

Workers should have asked fair increase in the wages.

The workers shouldn't have followed one leader blindly.

From workers point of view


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Comparative Conclusion The first important thing done by the textile workers' struggle was to change the definition of

victory and defeat.

Proclaimed that the strike was already over and should be for- mally withdrawn by the leadershipso as to protect cadres from getting victimized and workers from getting ousted from theindustry in large numbers.

During January and February 1983 the majority of these had been saying that some "soberattitude" should be taken and the strike should be withdrawn by com- promising on some partialgains and maintaining the fighting strength of the workers.

Their leader- ship, bound to the uncompromising nature of the struggle, neither withdrew norcompromised the strike

It may sound as though the workers were not concerned about their immediate demands forwage raises, im- proved working conditions, abolition of the badlisystem, and cancellation of theBombay Industrial Relations (BIR) Act, thiswas not the case.

They were very much concerned about these immediate demands, but they were not ready to

accept defeat if these demands were not fulfilled within a certain time limit and with a certainform of effort.

The textile workers were upholding and contributing to a new tradition that was pioneered by theworkers' movement on a smaller scale in various industries in the recent past. The textile workerswere overcoming a defeatist tendency within the working class movement: the tendency ofwithdrawing from conflicts with only small gains and with a false sense of victory based on thesegains. The new tradition of relentless struggle that they have established means that whetherthere is partial victory or complete defeat in terms of gaining immediate demands, the working

class must continue its battle


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Group Members Sabuj Biswas 38

Aditya Kaul 37

Samridhi Chaddha 31

Deeparati Mukherjee 33

Gursimran Kaur 18

AbhishekDevgan 41

Priyanka Chawla 47

Bombay Textiles Mill Case

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