INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES IN INDIA DURING THE YEAR-2003

PART – A

                           SALIENT 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 proportion of disputes, workers involved and mandays lost in Public and Private Sector of both spheres constituted 10.7; 89.3; 60.5 and 39.5; 22.7 and 77.3 per cent  respectively to the total number of disputes, workers involved and mandays lost at all-India level during the year 2003. 

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 proportion of disputes and mandays lost i.e., 91.7 and 77.8 per cent  respectively as compared to the Central Sphere which constituted only 8.3 and 22.2 percent respectively, whereas the number of workers involved is higher in the Central Sphere (61.0 %) than State Sphere (39.0 % ). 

1.3       Industrial Disputes in 2003 vis-a-vis 2002:  Table A-II shows the number of strikes and lockouts during 2002 and 2003 in different sectors and spheres. The number of strikes reported during 2003 were  255 (56 in public and 199 in private sectors) lower by 13.6 % than the previous year. The number of lockouts, 297 (3 in public sector and 294 in private sector) registered an increase of 4.6 % over the previous year.  Thus the total number of disputes (552) reported during 2003 were less by 4.7 % as compared to the number of disputes during the year 2002. 

1.4       Time-loss due to Industrial Disputes in 2003 vis-a-vis 2002:          The time-loss due to Strikes accounted for decrease of 38.61 per cent whereas Lockouts registered an increase of 19760.33 per cent in the Central Sphere during the year 2003 as compared to 2002, while in the State Sphere the time-loss due to Strikes registered a decrease of 69.38 percent and Lockouts increased by 23.26 per cent. During the year 2003, the average time-loss per dispute increased considerably from 45,917 mandays in 2002 to 54,811 mandays. While in the case of strikes it decreased considerably from 32,761 to 12,572 mandays and for lockouts it increased considerably from 59,582 to 91,077 mandays per dispute (Ref. Tables A-II and A-III) 

1.4.1      The percentage of mandays lost due to strikes and lockouts by sector / sphere during 2003 and 2002 have been presented in Tables A–III and A–IV. It can be seen from these tables that under Central Sphere time-loss in public sector in respect of Strikes has decreased by 37.69 % whereas Time-loss due to Strikes in State Sphere increased by 1376.52% under Public Sector, while in respect of Lockouts it increased under Central Sphere in Public Sector by 19760.33 % and 100 % decrease in State Sphere. But under Private Sector both the State and Central Spheres time-loss due to Strikes decreased by 54.50% and 71.07% respectively, but the Time-loss due to Lockouts under Private sector in State Sphere has registered an increase of 23.29% over the previous year.  Table A-IV shows the percentage time-loss by sectors and spheres due to strikes and lockouts for both the years 2003 and 2002. 

1.4.2                Table A-V reveals average time-loss per dispute, average number of workers involved per dispute and average time-loss per worker in important Economic activities due to Industrial disputes during the year 2003. The average time-loss and average number of workers involved per dispute were highest in Mining and Quarrying and lowest in Manufacturing Sector. The time-loss per worker involved was recorded highest in ‘Manufacturing sector’ and lowest in ‘Mining and Quarrying’