- (1.) This appeal by certificate from the judgment and order of the Kerala High Court has been preferred by the workmen of the Cochin Port Trust. The employers are the Board of Trustees of the Cochin Port Trust, respondent No. 1 (hereinafter to be referred to as the respondent). An industrial dispute between the appellants and the respondent was referred by the Central Government to Central Government Industrial Tribunal No. 2, respondent No. 2. The Tribunal gave an award in favour of the workmen but it has been set aside by the High Court on the application of the respondent filed under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India.
(2.) According to the Union, which represented the appellant-workmen, the Traffic Department of the Port Trust is comprised of and assisted by several categories of junior executives for the day to day performance of the shift work of the Cochin Port. Out of the seventeen categories of such junior executives, the first fifteen enumerated in the award from the statement of claim of the Union get Sunday off as a weekly holiday. When the workmen out of the said categories are asked and made to work on a Sunday, they are given a day off on any other working day and are also paid extra half day's wages. On the other hand category XVI - "Labour Supervisors Grade II" and category XVII - "Markers/Sorters/Checkers" have been put on roster off system, that is to say, these two categories of workmen are made to work of Sundays by rotation and get another day off in the week but they do not get extra wages for half a day as are given to the other fifteen categories. On the raising of an industrial dispute, it was referred to the Tribunal in the following terms:- "Whether the demand for changing the 'roster off' system to giving Sunday off as the weekly day of rest in respect of Gr. II supervisors and Markers, Sorters and Checkers, is justified - The Tribunal decided the reference in favour of the workmen. On behalf of the employers, the Port Trust, the stand taken was that the work in the Port has got to be carried on all the days of the week including Sunday as the cargo has got to be loaded and unloaded in and from the ships on every day of the week. Porterage labour i.e. Porters and others has got to be engaged on each day of the week to do the said work. The roster off categories of workers are, therefore, necessary to be engaged by rotation on Sundays also. They have to work in batches on the roster off system changeable in three months. In other words, some of the roster off category of workmen roughly speaking 1/3rd of the total number of 152 get Sunday off in a particular period of three months and the rest get a weekly day off on some other day of the week. After three months, another batch is given Sunday off, and so on and so forth, by rotation. Very few workmen out of the total of about 650 of the non-roster off categories are required to work of Sundays as it is generally not necessary to engage them on Sundays for the Port work. Their nature of work is such that ordinarily and generally they get Sunday off. If, however, some of them are asked to work on a Sunday, then they get a day off on any other day of the week and are paid half a day's extra wages also. In the case of the roster off workmen it also sometime happens that even on their weekly holiday in a particular period of three months, they are asked to work. In that event, they are not only given a day off on another day of the week but an extra wage for full one day is paid to them.
(3.) Oral and documentary evidence was adduced by the parties before the Tribunal. The stand taken on behalf of the employers was that if the roster off system was not continued the work in the Cochin Port of loading and unloading of cargo will get dislocated if not altogether stopped. The employers have got the right to arrange and carry on their affairs in the best interest of the industry. By putting certain categories of workmen on the roster off system, no discrimination is shown to them. While the stand taken on behalf of the workmen was that there would be no dislocation or stoppage of work even if the roster off system is discontinued because the two categories of workmen working on this system can always be booked for working on Sundays on terms made available to the similar kind of workmen in the other categories. Since in their case it is not so done, they are debarred of their half day's extra wages and thus are unjustly discriminated.;