Koshish Acharya

The peace process is in progress and the new constitution is being drafted, albeit slowly. This has resulted in a longer transitional period.

Out of the many changes, the escalation of frequency of conflict between employers and employees is a major one.

The closure of Surya Garments, a prominent garment industry of Nepal, is one sad example. Similarly, the case of Fire and Ice Restaurant and Hotel Vaishali are other recent cases, but there have been cases in the previous years too, like the closure of Colgate–Palmolive and Varun Beverages in 2009.

There is a repetitive phenomenon happening in this context, but the problem has not been addressed. Stakeholders in this regard, that is, the business community, trade unions, apex bodies like Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industries, Confederation of Nepalese Industries, Nepal Chamber of Commerce and the government have all failed to prioritise and discuss on the issue on a larger scale. One after another, industries are being shutdown — some temporarily, others permanently — whereas, a concrete solution is yet to be found. The problem generally starts with disagreements on salaries and wages and escalates to include other aspects as well. This is always followed by labour strikes, padlocking, and disruption of production and distribution.

Negotiations after this process has often resulted in the demands of the employees being met and the problem solved temporarily — to resurface in a few months.

The major forces that come into play in the negotiation are the trade unions and their associations and federations and the employers and the government as well. To understand the issues of labour, it is necessary to understand trade unions in the first place. In Section 2.d of the Trade Union Act 2049 (1992), trade union has been defined as ‘The enterprise level trade union registered under this Act for the protection and promotion of the occupational rights of the workers’.

The history of trade unions in Nepal dates back to 1946 when the All Nepal Trade Union Congress was formed.

In 1947, Biratnagar Workers Union was set up. In March 1947, the first workers’ movement took place at Biratnagar to establish democracy.

Trade unions played a major role during the uprising of 1951, 1990 and 2006 against the Ranas, Panchayat system and monarchy respectively.

Due to their involvement in all the movements, trade unions enjoy a prominent position in the politics of Nepal.

The objectives of a trade union, as mentioned in the Trade Union Act 2049 (1992), are economic and social development of workers by improving working condition, maintaining good relations between worker and management, helping to increase productivity of the enterprise and making workers dutiful and disciplined.

The purpose of establishing trade union in Nepal was to unite the labourers under an umbrella organisation to fight against exploitation by the management and government, but politics was also a part of the trade union.

Trade union’s objectives seem to be limited only to paper because in reality, none of the objectives have ever been fulfilled. The working condition are worse, workers are still not economically and socially sound, relations with management are getting worse every day and workers are not as dutiful and disciplined as they should have been. The trade union movement has been hijacked by political parties and true labourers themselves are exploited for promotion of vested interests. All trade unions are affiliated to one or the other major political party of the country. This has resulted in the conflict of interest of trade unions. The political parties have their own allies and agendas, which in one way or the other, differ with the interest of the trade union.

In all the melodrama and hassle of people’s movement, the proliferation of politicised and militant labour unions has gone unnoticed.

Ironically, it is the labourers (employees) who have to bear the real loss. The recently closed Surya Garments employed around 600 workers — mostly women — who are now out of work.

Similarly, other industries that faced labour issues had to be closed down, also at the expense of workers themselves. The real interest of labourers has been overshadowed by other issues, which has then affected employers. Issue of minimum wages needs to be addressed with regard to productivity.

Employees need to understand that unproductivity leads to decline in profitmaking capacity, which hampers their salaries and wages as well.

Trade unions, who should be involved in solving this issue, are entangled in political agenda. The demand should be to create a sound working condition with wages and salaries, depending on the skills and capacity of a worker rather than forcing employers to pay higher wages by threatening to padlock and strike. It is high time the real labourers raised their voices against the corrupt and self-benefiting militant trade unions, who are more interested in their own short-term gain rather than the economic and social development of labourers. The government needs to look at the issue in a totally different way where the middle man, that is, the trade unions, would be eliminated from the picture and the negotiation would be fair to the employers and the employees.

Labour strikes have been disrupting the economy for a long time now, resulting in loss of existing foreign direct investment and investment in the future. The government’s decision to make 2012/13 the investment year would be highly affected because of the ongoing conflict between employer and employees and until and unless the problem is addressed and highly politicised trade unions are eliminated, the hopes for industrial growth are slim.

(The author is a research assistant at Samriddhi, The Prosperity Foundation and can be reached at [email protected])

Published on: 15 January 2012 | The Himalayan Times