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The JAC move to oppose the tribunal's latest order may be taken up over the next few weeks as the State-level JAC leaders' meet would take a decision to appeal before the High Court against the tribunal's orders.

Coimbatore , May 9

IN a significant ruling, the Special Industrial Tribunal, hearing the textile workers' wage dispute, has accepted a row of bilateral wage settlements that were signed between individual mill managements and their workmen during the pendency of the dispute before the one-man industrial tribunal.

These settlements presented before the tribunal by the parties involved in the dispute have been accepted as `post-reference' settlements (meaning that these settlements were arrived at after the wage dispute was referred to the tribunal's hearing).

The tribunal had passed its order in this regard early this month and in due course, the tribunal is expected to pass the settlements as `interim awards', textile industry sources here said.

Handing out its ruling on April 7, accepting a batch of such wage settlements entered between individual textile units and their workmen at unit-level as binding settlements, the Special Industrial Tribunal headed by Mr Justice Soundara Pandian, has overruled the objections raised by the joint action committee (JAC) of the textile workers' trade unions which originally raised the wage dispute on behalf of the two lakh textile workers employed in the industry in 2000, industry sources said. The JAC had, right through the hearings, been objecting to the tribunal accepting the bilateral settlements on the ground that the issue referred to the adjudication has been `standardisation of wages' for all workmen in the textile industry and that the wages issue should be determined industry-wise and hence no unit-level wage settlement entered should be entertained by the tribunal. There were 66 such `post-reference' settlements of wages submitted before the tribunal for its acceptance and passage as `award'. With the tribunal accepting the wage settlements rejecting the JAC's contention, industry circles here feel that many more such negotiated wage settlements hammered out at the unit level may be forwarded in the coming days to the tribunal. The initial reaction from the JAC sources has been a muted one and indications are that the JAC leaders may take to legal recourse once again to contest the tribunal's decision. The JAC move to oppose the tribunal's latest order may be taken up over the next few weeks as the State-level JAC leaders' meet would take a decision to appeal before the High Court against the tribunal's orders, it is learnt.

The textile mill workers' wage issue was referred by the Tamil Nadu Government to the Industrial Tribunal for adjudication in September 2001 after protracted conciliations to settle the dispute between the textile mill managements and the workers' unions failed to break the deadlock. Originally, 1,692 textile units in the State were cited at the industrial tribunal as parties to the dispute and this list was subsequently expanded to 1,803 and the wage dispute was subsequently transferred to a special tribunal in July 2002.

More Stories on : Textiles | Courts/Legal Issues | Tamil Nadu

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