Definitive Report - REPORT_NO199, March 1980

1. 28. The complaint of the All India Centre of Officers' Organisations is contained in two letters dated 14 August and 25 September 1979. The Government communicated its observations in a letter dated 5 January 1980.
2. 29. India has not ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), nor the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

A. A. The complainants' allegations

• Allegations of the complainants
  30. 30 The All India Centre of Officers' Organisations alleges that its affiliate organisation, the Hindustan Aeronautics Officers' Association - Bangladore (HAOA), has suffered anti-union discrimination in its relations with the employer of its membership, the public corporation, Hindustan Aeronautics, Ltd. (HAL) which is controlled by the Ministry of Defence.
  31. 31 The complainant states that HAL embarked on a calculated attempt to break the HAOA which, after a dormant existence for nearly two decades, has become an active organisation representing approximately 2,300 of the total 2,600 professional workers employed at the various HAL aircraft manufacture establishments. According to the complainant, when the HAOA registered under the Indian Trade Union Act, HAL twisted this fact and misled the public by saying that such action had promoted a rival body to the non-professional workers' union which already existed to protect this latter category of workers in the various HAL factories. The complainant states that the question of rivalry is untenable because the cadre of employees is distinctly different and the professional workers, or officers, are not expected to be members of the workers' union.
  32. 32 The complainant goes on to state that the HAOA had been representing its grievances (demand for revision of salary scales and other facilities) to the management by communication and dialogue, but when these methods did not evoke a response the officers resorted to peaceful methods of industrial action such as wearing black badges and boycotting lunch, culminating in a day's mass leave on 27 October 1978. The HAL took punitive action against this protest by proposing a salary deduction for participation in the mass leave and by charge-sheeting seven office-bearers of HAOA, five of whom were suspended from service pending a domestic inquiry into their alleged misconduct. The charges against the office-bearers are that they instigated the professional workers to go on mass leave, conducted meetings and in other ways persuaded and incited other professional workers to join the strike; prevented other professional workers from attending official duty; held unlawful meetings inside the factory; published and distributed pamphlets on the lunch boycott and mass leave and held a press conference without permission. The complainant states that these activities are acceptable methods of organised activity. Despite representations and protests by various professional workers' organisations and members of Parliament, continues the complainant, several months have elapsed since this punitive action was taken and HAL has not resiled from its stand. The Defence Minister has supported the management's action in Parliament.
  33. 33 In its letter of 25 September 1979, the complainant states that its representatives met with the Minister for Defence and the Secretary to the Department of Defence Production to discuss the treatment of HAL employees on 18 August 1979, but on returning from a seemingly patient hearing they learned that HAL had terminated the services of the five suspended officers that very day. The complainant attaches to its letter a report on the agitation undertaken in response to these dismissals by both the workers' union and the HAOA in the HAL factory at Bangladore. The industrial action included lightening tool-down and pen-down strikes, the relay hunger strike, slogan shouting, processions, demonstrations, meetings, burning of effigies and management bulletins and boycotting of lunch. Talks between the union and management were unsuccessful until 24 August when a meeting of the concerned parties and ministers agreed not to effect the penal salary deductions and not to take any disciplinary action against those who had participated in the strike. The management stated that if the five dismissed officers submitted individual appeals to the appellate authorities as per the Disciplinary Action Rules, they would be considered objectively and sympathetically and suitable orders would be passed on the merits of each case.
  34. 34 The complainant also attaches to its letter a copy of an extract from the Deccan Herald newspaper dated 4 September 1979 and entitled "HAL ordered to pay costs to employee". The extract states that the Court ordered HAL to pay heavy costs to one of the charge-sheeted union officials for having served a dismissal order on him while his application for an injunction and declaration that the charge-sheet was illegal was still pending. The Court is quoted as saying "that conduct of the defendant (HAL) is clearly a step to defeat the attempt of the plaintiff to seek a legal remedy through his suit. It appears that the defendant is taking law into his hands and has passed the dismissal order in mala fide".
  35. 35 The complainant is of the opinion that the Government and its public corporations do not take kindly to professional workers organising into associations: the maximum liberty which they are prepared to give to such groups is to merely form an association and have sterile discussions which only result in frustration among professional workers. For example, the complainant states that the Government has not responded to their representations nor to any of the communications addressed to it by several professional workers' organisations.
• The Government's reply
  36. 36 In its letter dated 5 January 1980, the Government states that HAL has maintained a tradition of a high sense of social responsibility and has been one of the foremost organisations in India in providing good service conditions for its personnel. It has always encouraged healthy trade unionism and there is a trade union in each of its divisions. It states that the HAOA has been active for many years, but in January 1978 a group of militant junior officers forcibly usurped power by throwing out the elected office-bearers at the general meeting. A dispute over the legality of the new office-bearers is pending in the courts. According to the Government, under the new leadership the HAOA became militant and adopted a course of action which resulted in acts of violence and indiscipline.
  37. 37 The HAL management denies the allegation that it tried to break the HAOA by misrepresenting its trade union registration as promotion of a rival union. The Government states that the management merely made it known that once the officers' association was a registered trade union it had to share certain facilities provided by the management with other registered trade unions.
  38. 38 The Government states that the HAOA's demand for a negotiated settlement on revision of salary structure in the same manner as wages of workmen are settled is not possible in India because "officers" are not governed by the industrial Disputes Act as non-professional workers are. Nevertheless, the Government goes on the HAL took into account the HAOA's views on this issue when forwarding proposals to the Government for approval. The Government in fact had agreed to a substantial increase in officers' pay and allowances, but the HAOA leaders still incited the officers to take mass casual leave.
  39. 39 The Government states that as a result of this action the office-bearers of the HAOA were found guilty of violating the HAL Conduct Rules and five office-bearers and two Managing Committee members were charge-sheeted for serious acts of misconduct, including inciting officers to stop work, holding press conferences and divulging restricted information regarding defence production. In the departmental inquiry the charges were established; three office-bearers and two Managing Committee members of the HAOA were dismissed and the salaries of the two other office-bearers were reduced for a period of two years. In accordance with the Conduct Rules, the dismissed officers have submitted their appeals to the HAL management; they are under consideration.
  40. 40 The Government concludes by stating that there has been no violation of trade union rights in HAL. There has been no such complaint from any of the nine workmen's unions. It feels that it is unfortunate that in a sensitive government-run establishment like the HAL, officers behave in an irresponsible manner, thus jeopardising the rational interest.

B. B. The Committee's conclusions

• Conclusions of the Committee
  41. 41 The complainant alleges that the public corporation responsible to the Department of Defence, Hindustan Aeronautics, Ltd. is trying to break up its professional employees' trade union by misrepresenting it to the public as a rival union to the workmen's union, and claims that trade union leaders have been dismissed for organising and taking part in mass casual leave on 27 October 1978.
  42. 42 The Committee has stated that the right to strike by workers and their organisations is generally recognised as a legitimate means of defending their occupational interests. However, the Committee has agreed that the right to strike could be restricted or even prohibited in the civil service or in essential services in the strict sense of the term, i.e. services whose interruption would endanger the existence or well-being of the whole or part of the population. Where strikes in essential services or in the civil service are forbidden or subject to restriction, the Committee has stressed the importance which it attaches to ensuring adequate guarantees to safeguard to the full the interests of the workers thus deprived of an essential means of defending their occupational interests; it has also pointed out that the restriction should be accompanied by adequate, impartial and speedy conciliation and arbitration procedures, in which the parties can take part at every stage and in which the awards are binding in all cases on both parties; these awards, once they have been made, should be fully and promptly implemented.
  43. 43 In the present case, the complainant states that the HAOA's presentation of grievances did not evoke a response from the management, but the Government states that the HAL management had taken its demands into account when forwarding proposals to the Government for approval and that a substantial increase in officers' pay and allowances was granted. Furthermore, it appears from the complaint that meetings and discussions between the union and management were taking place continuously during the period of industrial agitation after the union leaders had been dismissed in August 1979. A settlement was reached providing that no penal salary deductions would be effected and no disciplinary action would be taken against those unionists who had participated in the August 1979 industrial action. Provision exists for dismissed unionists to lodge appeals and the five union leaders concerned have done so. The appeals are still pending. Furthermore, in private legal proceedings the courts have held that the management must pay heavy costs to one of the charge-sheeted union leaders for having served the dismissal notice on him while proceedings contesting the legality of the charge-sheet were under way.
  44. 44 Regarding the complainant's allegation that the management misrepresented the HAOA's trade union registration as promotion of union rivalry, the Government replied that registration meant that the facilities available now must be shared by all registered unions in its factories without distinction. The Committee considers that as no evidence of the management's promotion of trade union rivalry has been presented, this aspect of the case does not call for further examination.