Workers protest outside the Titagarh Wagons factory. Picture by Bhabatosh Chakraborty

Sept. 6: Titagarh Wagons Ltd today suspended work at its Titagarh unit, citing “insubordination and acute indiscipline by workers” and “unprecedented crisis due to low production and productivity”.

“The workmen in general had been indulging in various acts of indiscipline, deliberately holding up production and productivity, interfering unlawfully in the normal management functions,” the management of Titagarh Wagons, which employs around 550 workers at its Titagarh unit, said in the suspension notice.

“Wasteful practices are continuing unabated, which had the cumulative effect of lowering production and productivity to the rock bottom and thereby causing huge financial losses to the company,” the notice added.

A section of workers at the Titagarh plant had allegedly stalled work several times in the past two weeks demanding benefits while on assignments outside the factory. The workers, sources said, belonged to the INTTUC and Citu.

Titagarh Wagons, which also has units in Uttarpara, Rajasthan and France, had registered a profit of Rs 3.75 crore and a turnover of Rs 261.23 crore in 2013-14 when the company had produced 686 wagons. Sources said Titagarh Wagons had an order book of close to 2,000 wagons this financial year.

Titagarh Wagons is one of the largest private sector wagon manufacturers in India and is a key supplier of the railways. Besides wagons, the company also manufactures EMU coaches, heavy earth-moving equipment and bailey bridges.

Around 300 workers demonstrated in front of the factory gate at Titagarh from 10 this morning to protest the suspension of work. A police picket has been posted at the gate.

According to sources in the labour department, minister Malay Ghatak has told the management — led by managing director Umesh Chowdhary who had accompanied chief minister Mamata Banerjee on her Singapore trip — to meet him in a couple of days to find ways to resume work.

A labour department official said militant trade unionism, a chronic problem in industrial units across the state, had been affecting work at the Titagarh Wagons factory. “Like in most cases of recent labour unrest in the state, unions backed by both Trinamul and the Left have been creating trouble at the Titagarh factory,” he said.

In the past four months, around two dozen jute mills and several companies such as Shalimar Paints and Hindustan Motors have suspended work. While the companies have cited cost effectiveness and low productivity, the jute mills have alleged work disruption by trade unions.

According to Ashwini Shukla, the secretary of the INTTUC unit at the Titagarh Wagons factory, trouble started two weeks ago when the Trinamul union and Citu demanded that benefits be given to workers when they are sent on assignments outside.

Shukla said many of the 550-odd workers were frequently sent to work in Metro rail projects and various ventures in other states and Bangladesh. “Basic facilities such as treatment under the ESI scheme, should an employee on such assignments need it, are not given to us. This is unacceptable,” Shukla said.

The unions also alleged that the management did not provide Puja bonus on time and had not cleared gratuity dues in some cases.

A.K. Bose, a senior official at the factory, denied the allegations. “We provide all benefits that the workers are entitled to,” he said.

After the agitations began, the management suspended and show-caused nine workers, five of them affiliated to the INTTUC and the rest to Citu.

“The workers had also been demanding the withdrawal of the suspension orders (on the nine). A meeting was supposed to be held today. But before that, work was suspended,” a labour department official said. “Such a move just before Puja is not something the government can allow,” he added.

Company managing director Chowdhary denied the allegations of the workers and said action had been taken against “a small section” for “indiscipline”.

“We had taken action as there is no point letting them into the factory. Workers had protested and organised a tool-down strike. So we had to declare suspension of work,” he said.

Chowdhary said the management had paid wages to all workers in the past seven months “despite the absence of new orders on account of a lull in the wagon manufacturing industry”.

“But now, there are fresh orders. I hope this is only temporary and good sense will prevail among the workers,” he said, adding that the company had initiated dialogue with the administration to resolve the issue and restart production.