Chapter-1

‘SIGNIFICANT TRENDS IN INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES AND THE RESULTANT MANDAYS LOST’

1.1 Industrial Disputes in the Public and Private Sectors of both Central and State Spheres: The number of disputes (strikes and lockouts); workers involved and mandays lost in Public Sector constitutes 17.48; 34.79 and 1.22 per cent respectively of the all-India total number of Disputes, Workers involved and Mandays lost whereas the Private Sector constituted the highest number of disputes and mandays lost i.e. 82.52; 98.78 per cent and involving only 65.21 per cent workers due to un-rest respectively as compared to the public sector during the year 2007.

1.2 Industrial Disputes in the Central and State Spheres on All-India Basis: On all-India basis, it is the State Sphere, which has the highest percentage of disputes workers involved and mandays lost i.e., 82.78 per cent 65.44 per cent and 98.79 per cent respectively as compared to the Central Sphere which constituted only 17.22, 34.56 and 1.21 per cent respectively.

1.3 Industrial Disputes in 2007 vis-à-vis 2005 and 2006: Table-1(II) shows the number of strikes and lockouts during 2005 to 2007 in different sectors and spheres. The numbers of strikes reported during 2007 were 210 (68 in public and 142 in private sectors) which were decreased by 22.73 per cent in Public Sector and lower by 8.39 per cent in Private Sector respectively as compared to the previous year. Similarly, the number of lockouts, (179 only in private sector) registered a decrease of 100.00 per cent in Public Sector and 4.28 per cent in Private Sector respectively as compared to the previous years. Thus, the total number of disputes (389) reported during 2007 were less by 9.54 per cent and 14.69 per cent as compared to the number of disputes during the years 2006 and 2005 respectively.

1.4 Time-loss due to Industrial Disputes in 2006 and 2007: During the year 2007 as compared to 2006, the time-loss due to Strikes and Lockouts in public and private sectors registered a decrease of 87.52 and increased 51.89 per cent respectively, while in the State Sphere the time-loss due to Strikes in Public sector registered a decrease of 77.87 per cent and increase in Private Sector 469.67 per cent and Lockouts also decreased by 19.29 per cent during the same period. Average time-loss per dispute increased from 47,266 mandays in 2006 to 69837 mandays in 2007. In the case of strikes it increased considerably from 21,886 to 71,694 mandays and for lockouts it decreased from 80,247 to 67,659 mandays per dispute (Ref. Tables 1(II) and

1(III)

1.4.1 The percentage of mandays lost due to strikes and lockouts by sector / sphere during 2005 to 2007 have been presented in Tables 1(III) and 1(IV). It can be seen from these tables that in Central Sphere time-loss in public sector in respect of Strikes has decreased by 87.59 per cent whereas Time-loss due to Strikes in State Sphere decreased by 77.87 per cent under Public Sector. There was no case of Lockout reported in both State and Central Spheres in Public Sector during the year 2007. The time-loss due to Strikes in Central Sphere decreased by 87.91 per cent and State Sphere has recorded a decrease of time-loss due to strikes by 465.61 per cent under Private Sector as compared to the previous year. The Time-loss due to Lockouts under Private sector in State Sphere decreased by 19.29 per cent over the previous year. Table 1(IV) shows percentage time-loss by sectors and spheres due to strikes and lockouts for the years 2005 to 2007.

1.4.2 Table 1(V) reveals average time-loss and average number of workers involved per dispute and average time-loss per worker in important Economic activities due to Industrial disputes during the year 2007. Average time-loss and average number of workers involved per dispute was highest in “Manufacturing Industries” and average time-loss and average number of workers involved per dispute was lowest in the “Mining & Quarrying” and “Crops and Horticulture” respectively. The time-loss per worker involved was recorded highest in “Crops and Horticulture” and lowest in “Mining and Quarrying”.