Industry to lose Rs 1,900 crore due to two-day strike

Industry bodies in Karnataka have urged the Centre to intervene and resolve the issues of the trade unions so as to avoid the ripple effects of the already struggling economy.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Shiva Shanmugappa, President, Federation of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: “The two-day strike is likely to cost the State exchequer Rs 180 crore to Rs 190 crore and the industry, across the State, will lose around Rs 1,800 to Rs 1,900 crore of turnover.”

While agreeing that the demands of the unions need to be addressed, industry bodies have said that this, however, should not hamper the economy.

Prasanna Kumar, General Secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), said that there was a meeting between trade union leaders and Union Ministers Mallikarjuna Kharge and A K Antony on Monday and that the government was still seeking time to study the demands.

“There is nothing sudden about this strike that they have to study our demands now. The demands have largely remained the same in the last three years and how do we trust a government that has not studied all this while to do it now?,” he said.

He added that the dates for the current strike were intimated to the government and made public as early as September last year.

“Yet, this is their response,” he quipped.

Some of the demands of the unions include: concrete measures to contain price rise and implement universalisation of public distribution system; no to  FDI in retail; strict enforcement of all basic labour laws without any exception or exemption and stringent punitive measures for violations of such laws; universal social security cover for unorganised workers; concrete measures for linkage of employment protection with the concession / incentive package offered to the entrepreneurs, etc.