KANDAN TEXTILE LTD Vs. INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL I

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application is made by the Kandan Textiles limited, for the issue of a writ of certiorari to call for the records in the matter of the industrial dispute between the workers and the management of the Kandan Textiles, limited, before the Industrial Tribunal I, Madras and the award therein, dated 23 May, 1949 and to quash the same.

(2.) The applicant company is the proprietor of a small weaving mill located in iruvottiyur, Madras, employing (60 looms and about 200 workers. On 21 January, 1948, one R.M. Sundaram one of the workmen in the mill was dismissed by the management on the ground that he was responsible for the loss of a flexible shaft. He made attempts through the Labour Conciliation Officer to get himself re-instated but did not succeed in his attempt. On 23rd August, 1948, the boiler in the mills broke down and the mills were closed from 24 August, 1948, till nth October, 1948. On the intervention of the Labour Authorities, 14 days wages were paid to practically all the workers. On 12 October, 1948, the mill reopened. Most of the workmen who had been working in the mill on the date of the closure were taken in, but 48 of them were left out. The mills were not working at their full strength of three shifts. On 28th October, 1948, the management put up a notice of having a third shift on and from 3rd November, 1948. On 13 November, 1948, 21 of the workers who had been left out resumed duty. They were asked by the manager of the mills to work on looms other than those which had been allotted to them prior to the closure of the mills, but they declined to do so, and thereupon the manager asked them to leave the mills. A notice was put up at the mills informing the workers that their services were dispensed with as they had refused to accept the allocation of looms made by the manager. On 20 November, 1948, seven more workers of whom one was a jobber and the rest were weavers were called back to duty and new looms were allotted to the six weavers. They too declined to work on the new looms and were dismissed. Six of the weavers who had been in service of the mills before the boiler broke down were not called back at all. Two of the workmen who had been jobbers before the closure were entertained again not as jobbers but only as weavers.

(3.) There are in existence two rival unions of the workmen of the mills. The Kandan Textiles Labour Union, evidently sponsored by the management, was formed in June, 1947 and it is common ground that the majority of the workmen are members of this union. On 17 March, 1948, this union made an application for registration under the Trade Union Act, but for reasons which need not be discussed here it was registered only on 24 December, 1948. The other union is the Kandan Weaving Workers Union. An application for the registration of this union was made on 7 October, 1948, long after the application for registration made by the first union, but it was registered on 18 October, 1948.