Comments on: MRF United Workers’ Union Case: Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan

By: Geetha

Geetha — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:50:13 +0000

The MRF case has become a landmark for another reason as well: the Tamil Nadu government had issued extraordinary notices to curb workers’ rights in MRF, according to trade unionists working with contract and casual labour. Clearly the ideas was to create a precedent to further limit union rights elsewhere in the state. Recent happenings in Coimbatore, at the Pricol factory, where a factory manager was killed allegedly by irate workers reveal a similar logic at work: intimidation of workers, increasing casualisation of labour, attempts to install ‘official’ unions, and threatening workers, a substantial number of whom are women with unpleasant social consequences… The Pricol issue, it appears, will be used to further crush union activism – and it seems too that local police are not averse to linking this to ‘naxalist terror’. Pricol workers and families are currently being targetted and harrassed – and the instance of the murder has come to serve the management and police well.

By: Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan

Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:03:23 +0000

True Geetha, one of the notable features of the MRF workers’ struggle is the strong unity among the workers over the years irrespective of factors like religion and caste.
Also, as you point out, the workers’ wives have had a critical role to play. But for their unstinting support, the workers would not have been able to carry on in the manner they have. Moreover, they have also participated many of the demonstrations organised by the union. In short, they are as much part of the struggle as the workers themselves.
Prashant, hopefully, the Government will soon frame a law on the recognition of trade unions.

By: Geetha

Geetha — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:21:37 +0000

Three weeks, while attending a meeting of unorganised dalit workers in and around Arakkonam, I had the chance to listen to a woman speaker, wife of one of the unionists: she represented a group of worker-wives who had been in touch with various forums and groups in the neighbourhood – winning local support and credibility for the union. Impassioned and critical in her understanding of factory work, she appealed to the motley group of women present. She pointed out that dalits and non-dalits had buried their differences in this one instance, and urged the dalit women listening to her to lend their support to her cause. She noted too that almost every family in the working quarters of the city worked in the factory, and that the strike was not a matter of obdurate bad workers obstructing ‘good’ workers from working – workers, especially contract workers wanted their terms of labour regularised, and all workers wanted a union that would represent their interests and concerns.

I found this both interesting and illuminating: this mode of organising and arguing. appealing to civil groups as working class wives as well as acutely aware citizens who could list the many instances their rights had been overlooked, violated. The union leadership appears to have been open to different forms of struggle, from appealing to the ILO Court to local mobilisation in which worker wives have played a very important part.

By: Prasanth Gopal

Prasanth Gopal — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:09:03 +0000

A good article which gives an insight on rights of Union to be recognised by the Employer. It is time that the Govt frames appropriate guidelines for recognition of trade unions who really represent the workers rather than having the managemen’s “YES MEN” as representatives of the workers.