A hospitality chain’s refusal to bow to a party-backed syndicate’s demand for local employment in an outsourced IIM Calcutta facility has revealed how even a premier institution isn’t insulated from the politics of appeasement in job-starved Bengal.

“This problem is unique to Calcutta. We have projects across India… but have never faced such a situation anywhere,” C.K. Cherian, director (institution hospitality) of Sarovar Hotels & Resorts, said of the assault on his company’s employees outside the IIM campus in Joka on Monday afternoon.

“In Kerala too, there are trade union problems but I have never seen anything like this,” Cherian told Metro.

Cherian met mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who is also the local MLA, on Tuesday and was assured of the administration’s “support” following the attack allegedly engineered by the ruling party.

Cherian had said on Monday evening that Sarovar would like to stay on in Bengal and manage the IIM accommodation for working executives, provided the government supported it. Mayor Chatterjee promised to stand by the company, slipping in a request to recruit some local youths.

Cherian said: “The mayor pledged all support and I am satisfied. The project will continue. The mayor also requested us to hire some local youths but as of now we are not going to do so. If there is any problem in the future, then we may have to hire a handful of them.”

Professors at IIM said the mayor’s insistence on local recruitment was a reflection of the ground reality in a state without jobs, something that economist Pranab Bardhan had described not long ago as a “ticking time bomb”.

On Monday afternoon, a group allegedly backed by Trinamul assaulted and drove away around 50 employees hired by Sarovar to work as housekeeping and catering staff in an IIM facility meant for working executives. These youths had not been recruited through syndicates that supply men and materials, an industry in itself in business-bereft Bengal.

Sarovar has a three-year contract to run the facility for working executives who enrol for short-term courses at IIM Calcutta.

While the company isn’t running away yet, Monday’s violence showed how the country’s oldest B-school has been a silent sufferer at the hands of syndicates.

Be it running a canteen or maintaining the sprawling gardens on the Joka campus, local contractors have had to agree to the demands of Trinamul’s trade union arm, the Indian National Trinamul Trade Union Congress, sources in the institute said.

“The Mumbai-based company perhaps didn’t understand the ground realities here. Over the past three years, the local INTTUC leaders have almost made it the norm for contractors to hire staff through the union. We thought that since the agency (Sarovar) is already associated with a hotel in Calcutta (through a tie-up with Peerless), it might have had a feel of the pressure created by unions and syndicates,” an IIM professor said.

Officials of the institute said coercion in hiring staff had been a trend since 2011. “The deal is simple. A local contractor can get work started only if it agrees to engage half of the required employees through INTTUC. Otherwise, there would be a mild agitation or a meeting at the gate as part of pressure tactics. Contractors have little choice but to fall in line,” said an official.

Two PhD students of the institute said they had got used to seeing agitations on the campus gates. “Contractors are forced to strike a deal with the union leaders. The assault on Sarovar employees occurred because the company dared to stand firm in the face of pressure,” said a student of finance.

There is fear that the unrest will spread inside.

A senior official of Sarovar who had previously worked in Punjab and Gujarat explained why the company failed to anticipate the turn of events in Bengal.

“Nowhere are unions allowed to negotiate with us on how we will hire people. We thought it would be the same here. How could we know that a trade union would dare to have a say on how a hospitality chain hires its staff?”

He was among the officials who had to rush to Joka to take care of the 25 executives staying at the Sarovar-run campus facility because the housekeeping and other employees were chased away.

Several students at IIM said the incident had brought disrepute to Bengal. “How can you target a B-school when you make tall promises on industrialisation. Who will come to invest here when the message will go out that IIM Calcutta is being held hostage over petty issues,” a student said.

chain of command in attack on hospitality staff

An IIM board meeting scheduled for Thursday will discuss the problem. “IIM Calcutta’s director, Saibal Chattopadhyay, is likely to apprise chairman Ajit Balakrishnan of the incident,” said an IIM-C official.

Mayor Chatterjee promised that the agitation for jobs had been suspended for the time being.

“I told them (Sarovar) that they can resume work on the campus and there would be no agitation by any political party for the time being. I also apologised to Cherian for the problems he had faced on Monday and asked him to personally inform me in case of any further disruptive activities on the campus,” Chatterjee said.

An IIM professor wondered what the mayor meant by “for the time being”.

“If the mayor was serious about ensuring a return to normality, he should have said there wouldn’t be any agitation,” he said.