Pricol Workers go on strike. Arrested.

Bringing an end to the 18-hour-long road roko on Mettuppalayam Road by the irate employees of Pricol Limited at Periaynaickenpalayam, the Coimbatore Rural Police on Saturday arrested nearly 2,300 workers including 500-odd women.

(The workers have been on strike from Monday demanding withdrawal of transfer orders served on six of their colleagues. They alleged that the orders were a vindictive measure to thwart their attempts to come under a new union.)

The workers blocked Mettuppalayam Road from 4.30 p.m. on Friday demanding the intervention of the District Collector to find a solution.

The talks held by revenue officials and the police on Friday night proved futile.

To hammer out a solution, the Superintendent of Police, Coimbatore Rural, A.T. Duraikumar, asked the workers to call off the agitation and sort out their grievances at the talks organised by the Labour Department on Saturday. Even those efforts did not fructify.

Normalcy


On Saturday morning, the police started the arrest of agitating workers at 10.30 a.m. and lodged them at three kalyana mandapams at Karamadai. They were released late on Saturday night. "Unless normalcy is resumed, I do not think the ground is conducive for any further talks," the Executive Director of Pricol Limited, Vanitha Mohan, told presspersons here on Saturday.

According to Ms. Mohan, approximately 600 workers have gone on strike. Some of the workers of the vendor units have also joined. Talks were held twice in the presence of the Assistant Commissioner of Labour. Though talks were planned on Saturday in the presence of the Joint Commissioner of Labour, the workers had not turned up, she said.

"We were not officially intimated that they were starting a new union," she said. "We normally transfer some of our trained workers to new centres if we are starting a unit there." If the workers were not happy with the transfer orders, they should have asked for an explanation, she said.

"We do not plan to withdraw the transfer orders. We have been a management always open for discussion," Ms. Mohan said.

Meanwhile, agitating workers held a talk with the Collector on Saturday night. They were assured by the Collector that their grievances could be sorted out at the talks to be conducted by the Labour Development on Monday.