KAMANI METALS AND ALLOYS LIMITED Vs. WORKMEN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against the Award, April 23, 1964, of the Maharashtra Industrial Tribunal, Bombay (Mr. Meher) in reference (IT) 271 of 1962. The Award was given in a dispute between the Kamani Employees Union Bombay and the Kamani Metals and Alloys Ltd. The Company is the appellant before us. The reference was occasioned by a demand raised by the Union on February 25, 1960 in relation to wage scales and classifications, dearness allowance, production bonus, permanency for daily-rated workmen and grades and scales of pay, dearness allowance and abolition of marriage-clause for monthly paid employees. At first a reference was made to a Conciliation Board by the Government on September 8, 1962. The conciliation was frustrated for some reasons and on December 14, 1962, the Bombay Government acting under S. 10 (1) (d) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 referred the dispute to the Tribunal for adjudication. By the Award now under appeal, some points were decided in favour of the Company and some others in favour of the workmen. The workmen have not appealed and the Company has also confined this appeal to some of the points decided against it.

(2.) We are concerned with a Company which is carrying on the business of melting and manufacturing all kinds of rolled products of non-ferrous metals and alloys, copper and copper-based alloys such as sheets, strips, coils etc. According to the Company the process of manufacture unlike the general engineering industry, involves only the melting of the non-ferrous metals and casting them into suitable slabs for the subsequent processes of hot and cold rolling to alter their shape, size and metallurgical properties. The product so wrought serves as a base raw material for making products such as automobiles, telephones, radios and other electrical gadgets, etc. The Company claims that it cannot be described as a general engineering industry.

(3.) The main contentions in this appeal concern the revision of wages and monthly pays and the fixing of wage scales and time scales in respect thereof, respectively, and the increase in dearness allowance by adopting a new system of calculation. The Company also complains that:the Award has been given retrospective operation entailing heavy burden upon it. In support of the above contentions the Company states that its financial capacity does not bear the revision either of the wages and pays on the one hand or the dearness allowance on the other. It submits that the Tribunal in revising the wages, pays and the dearness allowance has followed wrong principles and ignored those laid down by this Court. Much of the argument in respect of wages to daily rated workmen and pays to monthly-rated workmen is common and it will not be necessary to refer to the argument twice over in the course of this judgment.