A wave of labour unrest that lasted for three days, hurt India’s largest denim maker Arvind Ltd with an estimated production loss of around ₹15 crore.

According to Labour Department sources, the strike was a result of a lack of co-ordination between workers and the company management. This led the workers to resort to what is termed as an illegal strike.

On October 22, nearly 10,000 workers at the Sanjay Lalbhai-promoted firm’s Santej unit near Ahmedabad had refrained from work with demands including wage revision, bonus revision, covering workers under ESIC, among others.

“About 10,000 workers were on strike. None of their demands was justified under the law. In fact, they were not even completely aware of the benefits they have been given by the company,” HS Raval, Assistant Commissioner of Labour told BusinessLine.

The Labour Department officials along with top company officials held conciliation with all the workers for about eight hours on Saturday. “The agitation by some of our workers at the Woven’s and Knits division at Santej Complex has been called off. All the workers have unconditionally joined the work and the plant is operating normally,” a company spokesman said on Sunday.

The management was caught unaware of the labour issues brewing inside the unit as the workers struck the work without the mandatory 14-day notice. The Labour officials had invited 35 people representing the striking workers for the conciliation process. No trade union had taken the leadership of the strike.

“Major Mahajan Sangh, the union representative, had termed the strike illegal as they had arrived at a negotiated wage settlement for a period of 2012-18. So, the Bombay Industrial Resolution Act, 1946 restricts them to hold any strike until the agreed settlement is in force,” said Raval. “After detailed discussion and conciliation process, the workers realised and agreed to return to work,” he said.

All the striking workers fall under the salary group of ₹10,000 and above.

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