The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : Plea to restrain employees from holding dharnas

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Sunday, Feb 10, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

Plea to restrain employees from holding dharnas

Staff Reporter

MADURAI: A private factory at Maravankulam, near here, has filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court Bench seeking to restrain one of its employees’ unions from staging demonstrations, blocking passage, shouting slogans and putting up loud speakers in a radius of 500 metres from the factory.

Justice K. Mohan Ram ordered notice to the employees’ union, the Superintendent of Police and the Revenue Divisional Officer. The Special Government Pleader was directed to file a reply in two weeks.

In his affidavit, the Company Secretary of the factory said the company making and distributing metal powder and paste to the Defence Ministry and other such establishments. The raw materials and finished goods stored in the factory were highly inflammable and explosive, so it was declared a ‘Red Alert’ industry.

Nearly 750 workers were employed in the factory spread over 106 acres. The employees’ unions were affiliated to two different trade unions.

Members of one of the unions, who went on a strike from January 23, “have been transgressing their limits of rights and causing hindrance to the ingress and egress of the employees as well as finished and unfinished materials, by staging demonstrations on the premises.”

Claiming that the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution was not an unfettered or absolute right, the Company Secretary said the union could not enjoy the freedom without responsibility, as its members had no right to hold meetings or shout slogans at the entrance of the factory.

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