A dispute has been raised against a Contractor by Casual and Contract Labour Union addressed to The Office of The Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), Kolkata in order to intervene the issue over retrenchment of 13 workers.
The said workers were deputed at various Branches of a Bank through the Contractor. The Principal Employer asked his contractor to reduce manpower.
Based on the petition, The Assistant Labour Commissioner (Central) proposes to hold a joint discussion on the dispute in her Office to bring about an amicable settlement of the dispute. Representative of the Contractor denied the allegation of retrenchment and stated that they have transferred the workers but not retrenched.
Union alleged that the Contractor who has executed the transfer order thereby retrenched them indirectly and they prayed to reinstate them in their previous location only. The employer (Contractor) stated that the workers will be paid as per the Metro City rate if they accept the transfer and moreover the employer at present do not have vacancy to fill up all the workers at their previous location. And the Contractor also stated that transfer is a part of employment condition which the workers cannot denied. After heard both the parties the Conciliation Officer requested to the Employer to re consider the cases and keep them in their previous location if possible. The P.E also requested to re consider their decision of reducing manpower.
After several joint discussions on various dates and the arguments/artifacts submitted by the Employer’s representative, the union had no option but to step back from their original demand and requested the Contractor to adjust 4/5 workers by reshuffling with last cum last basis entries of the workers with the first cum first entry. Subsequently, the ALC (C ) requested to the Employer to submit their proposal accordingly to reshuffle 4/5 employees.
Accordingly, the Contractor submitted proposal of reshuffling 4 workers with 4 last cum last entry workers. All the parties mutually agreed to the settlement of reshuffling of said 4 workers and the remaining workers will be considered as & when vacancies arises by the Contractor. Further 3 workers out of the 4 last cum last entry workers raised dispute of their transfer. On this new dispute raised by the 3 workers, several conciliations have done but the conciliation proceeding ended in failure.
The conciliation officer has sent the failure of conciliation report to Government of India, Ministry of Labour & Employment, New Delhi.
In reply the Ministry of Labour/Shram Mantralaya directed to refer to the failure of Conciliation report, said that, prima facie, the Ministry does not consider the dispute fit for adjudication as “The transfer was based on the date of joining of the aggrieved workers which included the disputant workers. The said three workers are adamant to move out and wants their posting in their own previous place which could not be enforced upon the Bank authorities and the Employer as per policy of the Bank as general transfer/ posting policy of the Contractor. Moreover, posting/transfer is the administrative prerogatives of the management.”