z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 213
ON THE INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES BILL 213
committee some of the minutes which members of the Congress wrote. I believe the honourable member Mr. Jamnadas Mehta was a member of the Congress then, but I am not sure.
Mr. Jamnadas M. Mehta : I have maintained that attitude even today.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : This is, Sir, from a minute written by Mr. Jamnadas Mehta, Mr. M. S. Sesha Aiyangar, Mr. S. C. Mitra and Mr. V. V. Jogiah :
“The fundamental objections to the Bill as it emerges from the Select Committee remain unaffected. We feel that clauses 15 and onwards, far from settling trade disputes, will only multiply them ; they will embitter relations between the employer and the employed and will, as all experience of similar legislation testifies, be utilised by the authorities for crushing political propaganda unpleasant to the bureaucracy. If the object of the Bill is to develop and foster genuine trade union movement in the country, clause 15 and onwards will surely defeat that object.”
That was the position that they took that no strike ought to be penalised even though it was applied to public utility services. The minute of dissent proceeds :
“……. . But having failed in that object we are obliged to append this minute of dissent. Up to clause 14 the Bill is a genuine attempt towards settlement of trade disputes by means of courts of inquiry and boards of conciliation. We believe that so far as that portion of the Bill is concerned, it emerges from the Select Committee considerably improved and strengthened. Almost all the changes that have been made in the Bill up to that clause have served to make it more equitable and just. Of course we leave out of account the definition of the ‘public utility services’ in clause 2( g ). That definition is consequential to clause 15 and should therefore be considered along with it. We believe that this clause is a great danger to friendly relations between the employers and the employed. A public service may be a ‘utility service’, but it does not therefore follow that a strike in such services without notice ought to be visited with criminal prosecution. It is true that a lock-out in such services has been made an offence also, but that does not affect the argument against making a strike a penal offence. We cannot understand why a strike in a postal, telegraph or telephone service or for the matter of that in any Railway service should be made a crime. No doubt such a strike is inconvenient and interferes with our ordinary comforts, but it is monstrous to claim that if any body of men refuses to minister to our comforts if any to claim that body as criminals especially when the strikers feel that these comforts and conveniences can only be satisfied by their own degradation and misery. Can it be seriously contended that the Frontier Mail and similar luxurious services are so vital to society that strikes thereon should be made illegal ?”
I commend these last few lines to my honourable friends opposite. Then the quotation goes on :
“For the Legislature to give sanction to so iniquitous a doctrine as the one which is embodied in clause 15 is to proclaim to the world that the