SC judgment on CIPLA threatens hundreds of contract workers

SC judgment on CIPLA threatens hundreds of contract workers
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

March 6: It’s just another Supreme Court judgment but it threatens to throw thousands of workers out on the streets. The already vulnerable position of the contract worker has been further eroded. Twenty two contract workers with the pharmaceutical company Cipla Ltd lost their jobs and the fate of others hangs in the balance since the judgment last month. A two judge bench held that labour or industrial courts cannot entertain the complaints of ``unfair labour practices'' under the Maharastra Recognition of Trade Unions and Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act, 1971 (MRTU). The MRTU Act was being used by trade unions to approach the industrial courts for immediate relief from threatened removal or non payment of minimum wages.

While there are avenues under the Industrial Disputes Act (IDA) for such complaints, trade unionists have preferred the MRTU Act as the ID Act has no scope for interim relief like an injunction against a company or a staying of removal till the case is decided.

``What is the point if a contract worker is removed from a job and the case is heard later? The SC judgment has weakened the already vulnerable position of the contract worker,'' said lawyer and trade unionist Sanjay Sanghvi of the Trade Union Centre of India to Newsline at a gathering of workers outside the gates of the Cipla company at Vikhroli on Monday where the SC judgment was condemned. ``A total of 66 people are employed in the various plants of Cipla,'' said Pius Verghese, General Secretary of the Cipla Employees Union, ``Of these the 22 employed at the Vikhroli branch are already removed.''

``With the Cipla judgment, most companies are moving the lower courts for vacating the stay they have obtained on the removal of these contract workers,'' said Singhvi. A case in point is the small textile company, SFS where the contract workers were removed last week.

A heartening sign of the changing trade union scenario is a coming together of the permanent and contract workers. ``It is heartening to see that to support contract workers in Cipla, many permanent workers from the surrounding companies have gathered here today,'' observed another unionist, Milind Ranade.

Contract workers have moved courts against victimisation, feared termination from services and other demands like payment of wages at par with those of the permanent workers under the MRTU. A similar case was moved by a worker of Cipla before the seventh labour court in Mumbai. However, the court held that since the worker was employed through a contracting company which had its own ``separate identity '' and registered under the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act, the case could only be agitated under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition Act) 1970 and the complaint was dismissed. An appeal carried to the Bombay High Court saw a victory for the worker and Cipla then went in appeal to the apex court.

In their judgment, the bench of Justice Rajendra Babu and Justice S N Phukan of the apex court held that ``if employees are working under a contract covered by the Contract Labour Act, it is clear that the labour courts or the industrial courts cannot have any jurisdiction in the matter.''