54
* Rejection of Railway men’s Federation Demands Re: Retrenchment
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Labour Member) : Mr. Chairman, in the morning when this adjournment motion was admitted I did not think that the Labour Department would have to come into this debate in order to explain its position. But when the debate opened I found that two of the speakers who have supported the motion have come down somewhat heavily on the Labour Department. Their charge was that although the dispute has been going on for some considerable time, the Labour Department has not played the part which it is expected to play in this dispute. Sir, I admit that the Labour Department has a considerable amount of responsibility in this matter. It is a department which has been established in order to see that the working classes do get their dues and if the Labour Department can be found to have failed in its duty, it would undoubtedly be deserving of the censure that is moved. But I am sorry to say, Sir, that my Honourable friend, Sardar Mangal Singh,— who in the first instance alluded to the responsibility of the Labour Department and said in a somewhat, if I may say so, slighting manner, that the Labour Member was either sleeping or fiddling—was completely unaware of the facts of the situation and has certainly not informed himself of what the Labour Department has done in this matter. I think it would therefore be desirable that I should place before this House some very relevant facts with regard to this matter.
First time when the Labour Department came to know that there was such a dispute between the Railwaymen’s Federation and the Railway Board was on the 5th October, 1945, when a letter was sent by an official of the Indian Railwaymen’s Federation forwarding a number
- Legislative Assembly Debates, Vol. I-No. 2, 22nd January 1946, pp. 106-08.