On Samsung workers’ right to unionise

Samsung India workers demand trade union rights, met with police violence; legal expert criticizes government actions.

The realisation of their fundamental right to form a registered trade union to collectively bargain for better terms of employment is at the heart of the protests by Samsung India workers’ at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. They want to meet the South Korean giant on equal terms across the negotiating table to jointly frame a collective agreement regulating their work conditions.

The State government responded by forming a ‘workmen committee’ to resolve the problem and resorted to police violence to quell the workers’ strike which began on September 9. Labour law expert and Madras High Court lawyer, senior advocate R. Vaigai, pointed out that the State’s action was akin to putting the cart before the horse. Legally, she said, the registration of the trade union named Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU) under the Trade Unions Act, 1926 should have preceded the formation of the workmen committee. The unleashing of the police, rather than following the tenets of the 1926 law to register the trade union and facilitate a democratic atmosphere for collective bargaining under the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947, gives the impression that the government is on the side of the Samsung management. On the other hand, the State government and Samsung have alleged that SIWU is backed by the Centre of Trade Unions (CITU). Samsung has further objected to the inclusion of its name in SIWU.

The Supreme Court in B.R. Singh versus Union of India in 1989 upheld the right to form associations or unions as a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(c) of the Constitution. The State or the courts could “reasonably” restrict the formation of unions, associations, cooperative societies under Article 19(4) of the Constitution only if there is danger to public order, morality, sovereignty or integrity of India. The restrictions must be based on logic and not arbitrary. The necessity to form unions is obviously for voicing the demands and grievances of labour. “Trade unionists act as mouthpieces of labour,” the court noted.

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It is the obligation of the State, acting through the Registrar of Trade Unions, as the regulatory authority under the 1926 Act, to register trade unions and give individual workers their voice. The benefits of registration under the 1926 Act include immunity from both civil and criminal action. Section 4 of the Act notes that even seven members could apply for registration of their union. Under Section 6, the Registrar has to merely examine whether a trade union’s rules conform with the rules of the Act. Speaking to Frontline, A. Soundararajan, CITU Tamil Nadu Secretary, has accused the State of “blocking SIWU’s registration”.

The Madras High Court, in Rangaswami versus Registrar of Trade Unions, succinctly defined the history and object of the Trade Unions Act as “the organisation of labour to enable collective bargaining”. ‘Collective bargaining’ is defined in Article 2 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Collective Bargaining Convention of 1981 as negotiations between employees and employers or their organisations to determine working conditions and terms of employment. The product of successful collective bargaining is a collective agreement. Collective bargaining is statutorily recognised in the Industrial Disputes Act. The Act provides that in case of failure of collective bargaining, the State steps in to refer the matter to a conciliation officer. The case is further referred to a labour court or an industrial tribunal if the conciliation officer does not succeed.

The roots of collective bargaining trace back to the late 18th and early 19th century when the coal miners struggled for basic conditions. Collective bargaining has protected workers’ rights post the economic depression of the 1930s and the Second World War to evolve as a norm along with the emergence of the democratic form of governance globally. In India, traces of collective bargaining could be found in the 1918 Ahmedabad Mills strike led by Mahatma Gandhi in which he initiated the formation of a committee of arbitrators drawn from both the workers, who were seeking a wage raise after the revocation of their plague allowance, and their employers.