z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 211
ON THE INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES BILL 211
labour field. I cannot say that I am a fieldman and I therefore do not know what are the difficulties which a person who is organising the workers for strike will have to meet. But looking at the situation from such experience as I possess as an observer in the City of Bombay, I have not the slightest hesitation that two months would be the most inadequate period for a body of labourers who have been held at bay so to say, for four months and 25 days to mobilise their forces in order to strike. If they do not strike within two months, what happens ? What happens is this that they are deemed in law to have accepted the situation. If they again raise their head and find out new grievances, the law says you shall again wait for four months and
25 days and allow conciliation to go on. Wait and see what we do. Wait and see, for four months and 25 days. Again if nothing happens at the end of four months and 25 days, if you think you can strike, do so within two months. If you do not and after two months you raise another grievance, you shall have to wait again for four months and 25 days. Sir, I would like to know whether such an endless cycle of don’ts would not produce complete slavery, perpetual slavery, of the workers for all time. If this is not a Bill for introducing slavery amongst workers, I would like to know what sort of Bill would introduce slavery. So much with regard to the provisions of the Bill which relate to strike.
Now, Sir, it will be necessary and I say very instructive to compare the provisions of this Bill, in so far as they relate to strike, with the provisions contained in Trade Disputes Act of 1929. That is an Act which also imposes certain limitations upon the right to strike and it would be, therefore, very instructive to compare the provisions contained in that Act with the provisions contained in this Bill, so that the House may be in a position to realise in what direction we are moving, whether we are moving in the direction of slavery. Sir, the Act of 1929 imposes certain limitations upon the right of the workers to strike and it would be enough if I refer to two of its sections. That Act of 1929 penalises a general strike for political purposes. That is section 16 of the Act and the other section which is more relevant for my purpose is section 15 which penalises a strike without notice. Apparently there does appear to be some sort of similarity between the Act of 1929 and the present Bill in so far as this Bill also penalises a strike without notice. But, Sir, beyond that the one Bill is as different from the other as chalk is from cheese. The one has nothing to do with the other and, comparatively speaking, I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that this Bill is reactionary and retrograde, and that the author of this Bill is a far greater Tory than the author of the Act of 1929.
Sir, let us compare the provisions of section 15 of the Act of 1929. As everyone who is acquainted with the subject knows, that section 15 of the Act of 1929 is restricted to public utilities. What that Act penalises is not all strikes, but strikes in what are called public utility services and this, I submit, is a fundamental difference between this Bill and the Act of 1929.