Strikes and lockouts show decline

New Delhi, June 14 (UNI) The number of strikes and lockouts witnessed a 13.6 per cent decline in 2004, the government today said giving the latest figures available.

Industrial disputes too came down from 552 during 2003 to 477 in 2004 with the public sector accounting for 49 disputes (59 in 2003) and private sector registering 428 disputes (493 in 2003).

Not even a single lockout has been reported in the Central sphere either from the public or private sector during 2004 while in state sphere there were 2 lockouts in public sector and 239 in private sector, the Labour Ministry said.

The number of strikes and lockouts involved over 20.72 lakh workers. Although the number of disputes in the public sector is considerably less, the number of workers involved in these disputes was quite high involving 15.89 lakh workers as compared to 4.82 lakh workers in the private sector.

The number of mandays lost due to industrial disputes also witnessed a decline of 21.12 per cent. More than 23.8 million mandays were lost during 2004 compared to 30.25 million during 2003.

In the public sector the decline was a huge 73.66 per cent while it was 5.72 per cent in the private sector.

Among the states, West Bengal accounted for the highest number of mandays lost during 2004 (17.56 million) followed by Rajasthan (1.33 million) and Maharashtra (1.3 million).

In the Central sphere, Andhra Pradesh had the highest number of industrial disputes with 12 while among the industrial groups manufacturing division accounted for the highest number of 307 disputes (64.36 per cent) with a loss of 17.26 million mandays .

Manufacture of textiles accounted for the largest time loss (12.13 million mandays or 70.26 per cent) of the total time loss in manufacturing division. Among the industrial disputes in the Central sphere, banks accounted for the largest number of time loss (1.22 million) followed by industry group coal and mines (0.32 million mandays).

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