Burdwan, Nov. 13: Big or small, Citu has little time for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s work ethics model.The CPM’s labour arm has put a small unit near here, employing only nine people, under lock and key for over six months.

Trouble started on May 4 when seven workers, who had registered with Citu and formed a union, demanded that they be given appointment letters from the day work began in the factory in 1991. But Anathbandhu Hazra Chowdhury, the owner, insisted on dating the letters 15.01.2005, on the grounds that his revamped unit began operations from that date.

Then on, slogan-shouting Citu activists have been preventing Chowdhury from entering his factory at Satgachhia, 95 km from Calcutta. They have also threatened to continue their agitation indefinitely if their demands ? there are five of them, including pay hike ? are not met.

The unit, set up in 1991 and modernised in January 2005, was supposed to be repairing transformers of the State Electricity Board. The zonal manager of the power utility, Manojit Pal, said a number of them are now lying in the factory because of the shutdown.

“The owner is refusing to acknowledge our previous employment,” said a worker.

In his defence, Chowdhury said though he set up a small unit in 1991, “I started full-fledged business this January, after getting the order from the state electricity board”.

“It is impossible for me to give the employees appointment letters dated 1991,” he said, adding that he has spent about Rs 25 lakh on revamping the unit.

District Citu secretary Pradip Ta said the workers will not allow the reopening of the factory unless their five-point charter of demands are met. Chowdhury was summoned five times to the union’s Memari-II zonal office. He also met the CPM MLA from Memari, Tapas Chatterjee, but in vain.

In the past week, two sponge iron units in neighbouring Bankura had also reported labour trouble under Citu patronage. A general manager and his deputy were beaten up in one and the office ransacked in another.

Subrata Gupta, the Burdwan district magistrate, said the administration is ready to cooperate with Chowdhury. “If necessary, we can provide police assistance to Chowdhury, but he has to settle the dispute through talks.”