Beating down Binny Workers Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 16, No. 7 (Feb.

14, 1981), pp. 225+227-228 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4369528 . Accessed: 10/08/2011 21:42
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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY obscure station as a punishment. Further, the authorities have started replacing dismissed, suspended and arrested loco staff with retired loco workers. However, these repressive measures have failed to contain the agitation which hal spread to all the zones. According to the locomen, initially they wanted to limit their agitation only to goods traffic in order not to create inconvenience to the public, but because of the repressive measures adopted by the government, the agitation has spread to passenger traffic also. In spite of the Railway Board's change that the loco running staff has "illegally stopped the trains" and that anti-social activities, illegal absenteeism and anti-national activities were running rampant among locomen, the locomen's agi.tation has received support from many other category-wise unions in the railways like the All-India Loco Mechanical Staff Association, All-India Signal and TelecommunicationStaff Association, All-India Station Mi'sters' Association, All India Ticket Checking Staff Association, etc. The Co-ordination Committee of Railway Unions, Western Zone, has urged the railway minister to intervene and settle the demands of the loco running staff immediately and stop rVpression and victimisation. The AllIndia Railway Employees' Confederation also has appealed to all trade unions, civil liberties organisations and democratic-minded citizens to oppose the repression let loose upon locomen.

February14, 1981
bailing out came in the form of a Rs 17 crore modernisation plan and working funds of Rs 4 crore guaranteed by the state government. But it soon turned out that neither the modernisation,plan nor the upswing in the market for textiles- which gave windfall profits to almost all textile companies in the country - could bail out Binny, saddled as it was with a management team which was as irresponsible as it was mediocre. The accumulated losses which stood at Rs 7.5 crore in 1976 have now gone up to Rs 25 crore. The debt burden has gone up from Rs 5.8 crore to Rs 43 crore. All this, on an equity base of Rs 7 crore. Binny's Rs X00 shares, mostly below par throughout the seventies, touched Rs 24 in 1980. The winding down operations in 1980 when the cash box ran dry was also typical of the Binny style of management. The crisis, seen from miles away, was allowed to overtake the company without much resistance. Cotton supply to the mills was choked from September itself and workers were kept idle inside the factory for two months before the closure notice finally came. Serious resurrection efforts started only in December 1980. Along with closure came the drumming up of the charge - in the everobliging press - that -all the ills of Binny were because of its workers: because they were too many, were paid too much and worked too little. The bewildered workers, who had received a bonus of 12 per cent only the year before and had been told that the cornpany had made profits and was on the mend, were put on the defensive. What is the substance in this charge? Without doubt, Binny has had a lot of obsolete machinery and working methods for a long time. Textile industry the and in India too - has world over seen the progressive shrinking of mnanpower as more and more modern machinery has taken the place of the older ones. The truth that the management and the government gloss over is that Binny also has been very much a part of this trend. The workmen strength of the mills has gone down from 17,500 in 1960 to 13,000 in 1970 and 10,500 in 1980, all through which period the sales have continued to rise, a remarkable reduction by any criterion. It is instructive -to note that the supervisory strength has during the same period increased from 400 to 600 and to 1,000. Yet three expert studies which have gone into the mill's working in the recent past have repeated parrot-like the

TAMIL NADU

Beating Down Binny Workers

government level for direct intervention, C Subramaniamseotched the plan and favoured handing over control of Binny to the Lakshmi Mills group of Coimbatore, a proposal that was solidly backed by the then DMK government in the state. Accordingly, the Inchcape group of UK, which controlled Binny, transferred some shares to the Lakshmi group and handed over the management to Lakshmi's G K Devarajulu. This arrangement lasted only four years when the government stepped in to stem the rot, following the 1976 Comme1ncing as an agency house in flooding. A Padmanabban,an IAS officer the name of Binny and Dennison, the of the state, took charge and initiated organisation he founded soon diversified action to plug many of the leaks in into insurance, cultivation of Indigo, Binny and established good rapportwith coffee plantation, sugar refining, mica *the labour union. But his tenure lasted mining and shipping and travel agencies. fonly one year; following machinations, The Buckingham Mill was started in 'he w,as transferred and the old guard 1878 and the Carnatic Mill six years stepped in once again. The present later. Over the years, the British conti'ManagingDirector is a long time Binny niued to dump their obsolete machinery 'hand, having joined the company 31 here and repatriate most of the surplus years ago as a Covenanted Assistant. without allowing reserves to build up Binny's troubles came to the fore for machinery replacements. The Second dramatically in November 1976 when World -Warproved to be a big bonanza an unprecedented cyclonic storm lashed for Binny, but thereafter, after indepen- Madras, and flooded the lowlying mills. dence, the British deliberately set out 'The flooding itself must not have come to milk the business dry before getting as a surprise to the management as the out. During the early sixties, when the mills have long been known to be prone Mills' profitability had substantially to this hazard, having been flooded declined, the Company continued to several times since 1902. But it certainly give its owners 18 per ce-nt dividend, came as a heaven-sent opportunity. Alwhich was tapered O&own only when ready drowning slowly in cash problems, no money to there was absolutely the management clutched at this straw distribute. with all its might and downed the shutDuring the early seventies, Binny ters firLnlyclaiming that it could not entered a period of. crisis and when a reopen the mills unless bailed out by seriousmove was ihiitiadte at the Central the state and Central governments. The
WHIEN young John Binny set foot in Madras in the year 1797 with something anore than a career as surgeon in the service of the Nawab of Carnatic on his mind, little would he have imagined that his name would still be ringing in the streets of Madras nearly two centuries later, that too with overtones of the satme chicanery and contempt for the niative worker, that marked the attitude of every young English adventurer those days who came to India to make a fast buck.

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

February 14, 1981

management's claim that 3,000 workers operate as a private club rivalling each workload. Binny has always been known foir were surplus to requirements. The mnore other in the amount of spoils garnered. exhaustive Bombay Textile Research The regency style houses in which the such 'special consideration' for its Association report went further to state Binny executives live easily outshine workers. When the Buckingham Mills that the badlis must be stopped and the any politician's ministerial mansion in first started in 1878, its 300 "hands" 14 per cent leave reserve dropped. It the country. Even electricity, which worked from "sunrise to dusk", an wanted the manufacturing cost to be costs the company 35 paise per unit is average 80 hrs per week. There was, cut by a tenth, 70 per cent of which sold to them at 0 paise (while the of course, no weekly holiday. The first was to come from the wage bill. All workers are charged the full rate for labour strike came within a few months reports relied heavily on what they con- their quarters). 27 executive houses of opening. The workers struck work sidered were industry averages. Much consumed 30,000 units a month last demanding that they be let off -at least is being made of the fact that the wage year, in addition tq a maintenance bill on Sunday afternoons. In the nonchalant component of the production cost is of Rs 5 lakh. Binny management'sreput- words of the official Binny historv: 19 per cent in B and C Mills against 16 ation for integrity is at its lowest now "The mill manager was not known for per cent elsewhere. Such simplistic among its workers and dealers. his tact in dealing with worknien. As comparisons without reference to the found so often happens in these cases, manageThe state governmentcommittee technology level of the unit can be itself "not confident of the ability of the ment were jostled into a position where misleading. Even if one gives full cred- present management in rising to the to give, anything away would have been ence to this argument the 3 per cent occasion in mee-tingthe serious situation construed as weakness. They did the difference explains only a quarter of the that has arisen over the years mainly next best thing and broke the strike. losses sustained by the unit in the last out of their own inaction". It strongly The Carding Master, Pereira was sent to recruit a dozen spinners four years. recommended that the management to Bombay which management has, much to should be taken over by the govern- and two jobbers,the mere threat of Binny's to cow the strikers. They answer for. It has to explain how during ment. The management team faced was sufficient However, the past four years while the unit real- further barracking from its shareholders returned to work in two days. back and installed the isation has been going up and the pro- as well at its recent Annual General Pereira brought portion of material cost to sales has been Meeting. The 2 per cent commission Bombay 'blacklegs' notwithstanding. these men going down and that of labour cost has paid- that too after the establishment The management thought been of regional offices by the mills at con- woulld be a good example to the locals, been static, increasing losses have The ringnade. It has to explain how the selling siderable cost - to guarantors, who wbo were 'very careless'. by 50 per neither buy nor sell, but merely stand leaders of the strike were dismissed and cost percentage has increased called it cent and the selling commission-has guiarantee for the 'good behaviour' of both workers and management of a day". tripled in just one year. It has to ex- the wholesalers, and the banality plain why it pays an intermediary a holding board meetings in Bomnbayat The long-suffering mill workers 5 per cent commission for sales effected tremendous expense came in for parti- formed the Madras Labour Union in to the defence department which consti- cular criticism. A majority of the share- the year 1918, claimed by some histute 20 per cent of its output. It has holders refused to partake of the re- torians to be the first organised union to answer for its unimaginative product freshments laid on by the management. in India. It was led by B P Wadia, a strategy - the product mix is largely The management did well by them- theosophist, sent along by Annie masculine oriented and blended fabrics selves even in the midst of the crisis. Besant at the request of the mill form only a stnall percentage - and When the Central government objected workers. The first strike launched by low marketing efficiency. It has to ans- to the princely salaries of the Directors the fledgling union in 1920 ended in wer for its wrong priorities in modern- in 1976 while the Company was making disaster; the management sued Wadia isation. Above all, it has to answer for losses, the Board of Directors went on for Rs 75,000 loss of production reits lethargy in tackling the problems of appeal to the shareholders stating "The sulting from 'criminal conspiracy'. The Binny even according to its own sights. Managing/Wholetime Directors have court upheld the claim and Wadia Industrial relations has never been been conducting the affairs of the Com- was forced to flee the union and the strong point of Binny management. pany efficiently in the context of extre- Madras to escape prosecution. Another An investigative committee set up by mely difficult conditions... Enforcing strike a year later led to police firing the state government under the chair- limitation on remuneration because ot and the death of seven workers. manship of its Joint Commissioner of adverse results which could not have Binny workers have a long history Labour found fault with the manageiment been foreseen would cause extreme treasured with unions hardship to. them". They appealed to of such struggles and have on this score. The agreement recovery the unity and independence . f their held as the government not to insist on on a 7-day work week -now famous labour a sine qua non for the mill's profitable of illegally paid excess salary. More union. Tamil Nadu's were leader Thiru V Kalyanasundaramwas allowed to lapse in recently the executive pension functioning-was associated with MLU for a number of November 1979. New machinery worth uipped by 60 per cent. years. After him, the union came r'upees one crore was kept in packing There was, of course, a different conunder the lacklustre leadership of S C C ot cases for the past one year for want sideration for the workers. They were The present an agreement with the union on their persuiaded to 'rationalise' themselves Anthony Pillai of HMS. leadership of MLU rests with Working manning. into shedding 1,000 of their strength Peoples' Council's R Kuchelar, a oneall old within the last two years and 'extend' time militant trade unionist. The Binny Top heaviness has characterised They established British companies in Madras, themselves into a seven-day week. staff are in a separate union led by directors are now, further urged to more drasticBinny included. The board of part of CITU's V P Chintan. and senior executives- entry into which ally dismember themselves, lose The present struggle of Binny their earnings and take on additional circle is through the old boy network 227

February 14, 1981 workers has not created too mnanyripples in the placid city of Madras. The fight for the jobs and livelihood of

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY takeover of the mills - he vas not managementand the government insisted interested in taking over all junk; he that the revised work norms must be was no longer interested in fire-fight- agreed to'and implemented inside of a ing operations; it was not the govern- month. The unions resisted this saying ment's headache; if the workers were that it will be physically impossible to not prepared to make the mills viable do such an exercise within one month by sacrificing themselves, they can face and pointed out to the successful the music; it was not his problem. example of the Swadeshi Textile Mills Coming hard on the heels of the Maruti in Pondicherry, where a joint comtakeover ordinance, the irony of this mittee of workers and management outburst was not lost on the Binny completed over a six-month period full rationalisation measures. workers. I-n trying to rush through- such a Not to be outdone by His Master's Voice, a senior official of the commerce complex exercise in a short time the ministry narrated smugly to a Madras management and the government have journalist the case of the Tea Trad- displayed their usual fear and coning Corporation's warehouses in Cal- tempt for the workers. A senior labour cutta where it was 'discovered' that leader commented that the unions had 150 of 450 workers were surplus. The agreed to all the substantive demands workers had the suoport of the state of the managenment but only balked government, but had to give in when at their unreasonable attempt to beat the Central government closed the the workers down to the maximum. warehouses and started settling the A case in point is the big noise that workers' dues; only 250 workers were continues to be made of the 'temtaken back on an agreement to give porary war production allowance' higher productivity. If this could granted during the war years, but happen in Jyoti Basu's W.est Bengal, continued thereafter. That this conswhy not in Tamil Nadu "with the 'sup- titutes only 0.6 per cent of the wage ple government of MGR, keen to bill is easily hidden from the public eye and the workers' resistance to please thq Centre"? give this up - which results solely Starting with this stance of arro- from the fact that they won the right gance, the commerce minister and his to keep the allowance after a ding officers have held discussions with the dong battle with the management unions and the management culminat- right up to the Supreme Court --- is ing in a feverish series of meetings blown out of proportion. in the last week of December to beat After the negotiations broke J1own, the new-year deadline for closure. Broad agreement was reached on the the Binny workers and the joint action excluding the government proposal for seven-day committee of unions week, uninterrupted 24-hour working, INTUC and AIADMK unions - callhigher work norms, voluntary retire- ed a Madras bandh which proved to ment of 1,300 workers above the age be a success despite the short notice of 54, stopping of War Production given. Anxious to defeat the bandh Allowance and review of night shift MGR declared a holiday for the (lay and sick leave allowances. The manage- under the Negotiable Instruments Act ment agreed to halve the guarantor's ostensibly in honour of the 'ramil commission and review its purchase Conference being held at Madurai and and marketing structure. As for the issued an ordinance banning strikes a black ordin5 per cent commission paid on defence in essential services sales, P Ramamurthy, CITU General ance that he had brought in twice Secretary, who played a substantial before and taken back twice in the role in getting the negotiations going, face of opposition. Several members of the staff union including the General explained in a Binny workers"meeting: "The Binny management pleaded with Secretary were arrested and remanded me, 'Mr Ramamurthy,you talk so much to 15 days custody for attempting to of corruption in the government, so demonstrate near the state legislature. you must know the realities of life. Commerce minister Pranab MukherHow do you expect us to make any jee is due to make another attempt at sale to the defence department . nd breaking the dead lock. B and .C Mills obtain timely payment from thiem will ultimately reopen and function. without such an arrangement with an But the workers, in the meanwhile, intermediary?'" would have received an object lesson unstuck on on the functioning of a class society _.Butthe negotiations camne the time-frame of implementation. The and a class government.

more than 10,000 workers is yet to

generate among the working class of Madras the kind of tension and militancy of the Ash-ok Leyland or MRF or Simpson struggles of the last decade. A certain complacency among all concerned that a unit of this size can never close and a certain lack of focus to the struggle are probably the contributory reasons. This lack of focus arises from a bewilderment among the workers as to who their real adversary is. Binny is presently controlled 70 per cent by the financial institutions, including the 22 per cent expatriate interest represented by the State Bank of India. In any case, the workers know that there is no money inside the company and the outsiders who can help are the financial institutions and the state and Central governments. With the instituticnal bureaucrats keeping to their rule-books scrupulously, the workers have been left with no alternative but to petition the state and Central governments alternately. It is the misfortune of the workers that unlike in 1977 there are no elections round the corner now. The state chief minister M G Ramachandran got himself elected a second time last year in a contest that gave him the sca:e of his life, by particularly promising the workers that he was a changed man, a man who had shed his anti-working class bias. The change lasted no tmore than six months. By now, he has reached a full circle, back to his .riginal form of the 1978-79 period topping his many betrayals with open courting of the Congress(I) and Indira Gandhi. With Binny workers he went through the usual motions of lip sympathy and tripartite discussions, including a gimmick of going out to meet a workers' procession half way. But substantively, he has done nothing so far, except to point the finger to the Central government, not even applying any pressure on the Centre. As far as the chief minister and his bureaucrats are concerned, there is no real crisis in Binny that calls for their attention. The most diabolical role in the whole affair has been played by the Central government. Minister for commerce Pranab Mukherjee gave vent to his prejudices when he responded to the workers' demand for Central
228