STATISTICS ON INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES, CLOSURES, RETRENCHMENTS AND LAY-OFFS IN INDIA DURING THE YEAR 2006
1.1 Industrial Disputes in the Public and Private Sectors of both Central and State Spheres: The number of disputes (strikes and lockouts); workers involved and mandays lost in Public Sector constitutes 20.47; 88.39 and 13.07 per cent respectively of the all-India total number of Disputes, Workers involved and Mandays lost whereas the Private Sector constituted the highest number of disputes and mandays lost i.e. 79.53; 86.93 per cent and involving only 11.61 per cent workers affected due to un-rest respectively as compared to the public sector during the year 2006.
1.2 Industrial Disputes in the Central and State Spheres on All-India Basis: On all-India basis, it is the State Sphere, which has the highest percentage of disputes and mandays lost i.e., 81.39 per cent and 86.64 per cent respectively as compared to the Central Sphere which constituted only 18.60 and 13.36 per cent respectively. The number of workers involved in strikes and lockouts was highest in the Central Sphere 90.92 per cent than in State Sphere 9.08 per cent.
1.3 Industrial Disputes in 2006 vis-à-vis 2004 and 2005: Table-1(II) shows the number of strikes and lockouts during 2004 to 2006 in different sectors and spheres. The numbers of strikes reported during 2006 were 243 (88 in public and 155 in private sectors) which were higher by 57.14 per cent in Public Sector and lower by 9.36 per cent in Private Sector respectively as compared to the previous year. Similarly, the number of lockouts, (187 only in private sector) registered a decrease of 100.00 per cent in Public Sector and 17.98 per cent in Private Sector respectively as compared to the previous years. Thus, the total number of disputes (430) reported during 2006 were less by 5.70 per cent and 9.85 per cent as compared to the number of disputes during the years 2005 and 2004 respectively.
1.4 Time-loss due to Industrial Disputes in 2005 and 2006: During the year 2006 as compared to 2005, the time-loss due to Strikes and Lockouts both of public and private sectors registered a decrease of 50.76 and 20.45 per cent respectively whereas Lockouts registered a significant decrease of 100.00 per cent in the Central Sphere, while in the State Sphere the time-loss due to Strikes of both Public and Private Sectors registered a decrease of 70.39 per cent and Lockouts also decreased by 19.63 per cent during the same period. Average time-loss per dispute decreased from 65,054 mandays in 2005 to 47,266 mandays in 2006. In the case of strikes it decreased considerably from 47,580 to 21,886 mandays and for lockouts also it decreased from 82,377 to 80,247 mandays per dispute (Ref. Tables 1(II) and
1(III)
1.4.1 The percentage of mandays lost due to strikes and lockouts by sector / sphere during 2004 to 2006 have been presented in Tables 1(III) and 1(IV). It can be seen from these tables that in Central Sphere time-loss in public sector in respect of Strikes has increased by 31.83 per cent whereas Time-loss due to Strikes in State Sphere decreased by 84.80 per cent under Public Sector. There was no case of Lockout reported in both State and Central Spheres in Public Sector during the year 2006. The time-loss due to Strikes in Central Sphere increased by 35.34 per cent and State Sphere has recorded a decrease of time-loss due to strikes by 70.39 per cent under Private Sector as compared to the previous year. The Time-loss due to Lockouts under Private sector in State Sphere decreased by 19.63 per cent over the previous year. Table 1(IV) shows percentage time-loss by sectors and spheres due to strikes and lockouts for the years 2004 to 2006.
1.4.2 Table 1(V) reveals average time-loss and average number of workers involved per dispute and average time-loss per worker in important Economic activities due to Industrial disputes during the year 2006. Average time-loss and average number of workers involved per dispute was highest in “Crops and Horticulture” and average number of workers involved per dispute was lowest in the “Manufacturing Industries”. The time-loss per worker involved was recorded highest in ‘Manufacturing sector’ and lowest in ‘Mining and Quarrying’