Case: Port Engineering Works Vs. Their Workmen

The facts relevant to the question may be briefly stated. The appellant, Port Engineering Works (hereinafter called the company) has its registered office at Calcutta. It has been carrying on work in the following three main lines :(a) casting and general jobbing engineering;(b) sugar mill machinery; and(c) boat repairs, i.e., repairs of inland water transportof the employees of the company are working asworkers and others underThe company has also a foundry department employing about 150 workmen. These workmen were earning extra income as overtime wages; but in January 1955, on an objection taken by the factory inspector, the practice of giving overtime work to them was given up. As a result of the stoppage of overtime work, the employees in the foundry department became disgruntled and there was dislocation and laxity in the said department. In those circumstances, production bonus was first introduced in the foundry department. At first the scheme of production bonus was made applicable only to the coolies with a hope that it might be extended to moulders also at a later stage. But for one reason or other, the appellant did not extend the scheme to moulders; and this resulted in a strike on 13 July, 1955. At the intervention of the Assistant Labour Commissioner, Howrah, the said scheme was extended to theBut on 5 August 1955, the moulders were told that they had not earned any production bonus. This led to a sitdown strike by the moulders; and the company withdrew the scheme. The Government of West Bengal referred the industrial dispute between the appellant and the respondents to the Judge, fifth industrial tribunal, Calcutta, for adjudication on the question of production bonus among others. The industrial tribunal came to the conclusion that the scheme was practically given no trial at all inasmuch as it was in force only for about six weeks and therefore, the scheme should be introduced over again and given a fair trial at least for three months. If it did not work satisfactorily, the tribunal gave the direction that the company should try to reach an agreement with the workers in a bipartite conference to see whether the target should be lowered down so as to make the bonus available to the workmen who put in a good amount of extra labour for production. The tribunal further directed that if even then it was found unworkable, it should be abandoned. The company filed the present appeal after obtaining special leave of this Court confining the appeal only to the question of production bonus.

Reasoning: In the supplementary statement, the union clearly averred that the company agreed to give the workmen the benefit of production bonus, that according to the assurance, the workmen gave more production in expectation of production bonus and that to their utter surprise, they found that the company had framed the production bonus scheme without consulting them and then declared at the end of a production period that the said workmen would not be entitled to any production bonus for that period under the said scheme. By this statement also the union clearly indicated its acceptance of the scheme, though it complained that under the scheme framed by the company behind the back of the workmen, the company stated that no production bonus would be payable to the workmen. There is, therefore, no basis for the learned counsels contention that the respondents were one with the appellant for scraping the scheme. Unfortunately, before the industrial tribunal neither the appellant nor the respondents put forward any acceptable suggestions for modifying the scheme. The tribunal, therefore, was not in a position to evolve a better scheme; nor was it in a position to hold that the scheme propounded by the management was unworkable, for admittedly it was not worked sufficiently long to enable the tribunal to come to a definite conclusion. In the promises, the tribunal thought of giving another chance to the parties for working the scheme presumably in the hope that the workmen wouldcooperate with themanagement to make it a success. The conditions imposed by it would also be a real deterrent for the workers becoming recalcitrant in their attitude. Further it was left to the discretion of the management to give up or modify the scheme, if it did not work well and if no agreement was reached between the parties. That the hope of the tribunal was not unjustified is amply borne out by the fact that the respondents did not prefer any appeal against the award in so far as it went against them indicating thereby their intention tocooperate with theappellant in the working of the scheme.