The Hindu Business Line : Tirupur hosiery workers threaten strike on wages

SIX central trade union-affiliates, representing the Tirupur-based hosiery workers, have threatened to call an indefinite strike any time after April 25.

They said the threat will be carried out if the knitwear factory managements failed to settle by then the pending wage revision due for the nearly one lakh hosiery workers employed by the Tirupur knitwear industries. The trade union affiliates have served strike notices.

The workers unions, affiliated to the CITU, AITUC, INTUC, LPF, ATP and LPF, have also called for a `token' strike on Tuesday by the workers employed in all the knitwear production units.

The 24-hour strike has been called in the wake of the stalemate in the bilateral talks held between the representatives of the workers unions and the six knitwear industry associations, which intervened on behalf of the knitwear factory owners in the wages issue.

The hosiery workers unions have been demanding a new wage settlement, to replace the three-year accord which expired in February this year, seeking among other things, some 50 per cent hike in basic wages, higher DA, TA, HRA in a 15-point demand charter.

The nearly three-months of wage negotiations between the two sides failed to break the deadlock in the talks as the hosiery managements insist that the unions should agree for a `productivity-linked' wage revision.

But the unions rejected the management demand saying that the issue of productivity-linked wage is being advanced as a `bogey' to delay the wage settlement.

The unions said any discussion on `productivity-linked' wage could be discussed if only the management offered to settle the issue of framing an industry-wide new wage accord.

The demand for the wage revision for the Tirupur hosiery workers broadly covers the six key categories of labour under the regular time-scale and the piece-rate workmen.

The wage revision demand covers workers serving the exporting units as well as those producing for the local market.

Union sources said that the token strike would cover only those workers employed in the hosiery fabrication/garmenting units.

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