Mere temporary employment for some part of every year without the sinister object of the employer will not fall within the mischief of Item 6 of Schedule IV of the MRTU & PULP Act, 1971.

ORDER :

R.J. Kochar, J.—What the employees have complained to be an unfair labour practice under item 6 of the MRTU & PULP Act, 1971 (the Act for short), the petitioner-employers have said to be-employment by rotation of 4000 employees for a period of less than 7 months. I would rather name it to be "Bajaj Rozgar Yojana" like, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana. They have averred so in their written statement and in their writ petition as under:-

"(x) That the learned Industrial Court ex facie erred in concluding that there was an obligation on the petitioner company, to prove workers were engaged for work of seasonal or temporary nature. The learned Judge failed to realise that the appointments in the present case were purely contractual. By reason of this employment albeit on temporary and rotational basis, the petitioner was giving employment from time to time to as many as 4000 workers through the aforesaid rotation. This could not have been possible had the petitioner employed regular workers. The aforesaid temporaries were happy to accept the temporary employment for the last several years. It is only when these employees realised that the petitioner company was facing severe competition and may not in future be able to give them continued employment that they have malafide filed the present complaints."

About 700 employees filed individual complaints before the Industrial Court, Maharashtra at Pune u/s 28 read with Section 30 and Items 5, 6, 9 and 10 of Schedule IV of the Act. The main thrust of the complaint was Item 6 i.e.

"To employ employees as "badlis", casuals or temporaries and to continue them as such for years, with the object of depriving them of the status and privileges of permanent employees."

The nub of their complaints is that the employer company has engineered a scheme or a modus operandi to employ persons as temporary employees for a period upto 7 months and thereafter given an artificial break to avoid to make them permanent under the Model Standing Orders (Item 9 of Schedule 4 of the Act). According to them such a scheme is in practice in the company for last several years with an object of depriving them of the status and privileges of permanent workmen. It is also their case that the work which they are required to do is of permanent nature and the posts where they do the work are permanent posts. They have further averred in their complaints that after 7 months they arc replaced by another batch of temporary employees. They further emphasised that they were not allowed to complete one year's continuous service to enable them to become permanent under the Model Standing Orders. In this manner they sought a declaration from the Industrial Court u/s 28 of the Act that the employers had engaged in an unfair labour practice and that they should be directed to cease and desist from doing so and further they should be directed to make the complainant employees permanent in employment with all the benefits of permanency with retrospective effect from the date of completion of 240 days in employment.

2. The employers filed their written statement and denied all the allegations of unfair labour practices and explained conditions of employment, production and market fluctuations and uncertainty of demand for their products (two and three wheelers) due to keen competition. They have tried to explain that they have a seniority list of employees category wise and work wise and they employ the employees from the said list on the basis of their seniority and availability of orders depending on the fluctuating market. These employees are employed and continued in accordance with the orders and availability of the work upto a period of 7 months and if work continues even for a long period. The company : has admitted the employment of employees as temporary for the increase in the work and till such increased work is available depending on the market. The company has denied that it has engaged in any unfair labour practice by empl