TEXTILE EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION Vs. ARBITRATOR [RAMASWAMI GOUNDER K ]

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE facts which have given rise to this writ petition can be summarized briefly.

(2.) THE petitioner is the Textile Employees' Association, Tiruehi Road, Singanallur. On account of a dispute which arose between a specified number of 88 workers employed in the Cambodia Mills in the categories of jobbers, maistrie, fitters and boilers on the one hand and the management on the other, about the quantum of production bonus, the dispute was referred under Section 10a. of the Industrial Desputes Act, voluntarily to an arbitrator Sri K. Ramaswami Gounder. retired High Court Judge and industrial tribunal, for adjudication. For regulating the payment of this production bonus, it is common ground that there was an agreement between the management of the textile industry in Coimbatore and workers in 1949, which provided for the calculation of production bonus by multiplying the uniform rate of bonus payable to the actual spinners or piecera as they were called (Ra. 2-7-0) by the different multiples 15,10,6,3, adjusted according to the nature of the supervisory job, involved, like headjobber, dotting-jobber, side-jabber and assistant fitter. in 1957 this pattern of calculation of production bonus was again modified by agreement between the management in the industry and the representative of the workers which en-hanced the production bonus payable for the placers or spinners to a higher level starting with Rs. 3-1-0 for cotton spinners in the lowest range of counts to Rs. 4-1-0 and 8-2-0 for the higher counts giving up the uniform fiat rate adopted in 1949 scheme at Rs. 2-7-0. At the same time, however, the method of calculating the production bonus for supervisory job like those of the petitioners herein by multiplying the production bonus of plecers or spinners by a specified series of multiples was abandoned and a uniform rate for the different supervisory jobs was fixed. Now in the case of Cambodia Mills, it appears that from 1957 to 1959 only the low counts of cotton used to be spun, but the piecers and spinners were given enhanced production bonus of Rs. 3-4-0 the lowest rate in the revised scales of bonus. But the then management (the predecessor of the present management) continued to multiply this Rs. 3-4-0 by the same multiples as those which prevailed in 1917 scheme for determining the production bonus for the supervisory posts. in 1959 for the first time the spinning of higher counts was commenced and thereafter also the same system was followed by the prior management. But when the present management who had purchased the mills in 1960 took over they found the failure of the previous management to adopt the new schems of production bonus for the supervisory poets and their parsiating in the old system led to considerable loss Thereupon they issued a notice under Section 9a. to the workers proposing to adopt the 1957 system of calculating the production bonus. The worker a resisted this claim and insisted upon their being paid the production bonus as was done heretofore. It is in the above circumstances that the dispute arose and was brought before the arbitrator for adjudication.

(3.) IT would appear that the petitioners base their claim on a right which they had acquired by the fact that the previous management notwithstanding the change produced in the 1057 scheme continued to give them the benefit of calculation of the production bonus under the earlier 1947 scheme. The petitioners also appear to have urged certain special difficulties of production in the Cambodia Mills, without specifying what those difficulties were. On the other hand, the management contended that the change over to finer counts in 1950 had increased the bonus paid to plecera and spinners to very high figures, especially in the region of the higher counts. This made it very difficult to persist in awarding production bonus to supervisory posts on the basis of the old 1947 scheme and therefore they had to adopt the 1957 ache me instead. This was also the method followed by other mills in the area for the calculation of promotion bonus,