Industrial Dispute Labour Court — Advocate at Asansol Court

A workman or a union raises the dispute in writing before the conciliation officer for the area, setting out the facts, the relief sought and the number of workmen affected. The officer calls both sides, examines the records and tries to reach a settlement. A settlement arrived at in conciliation is binding on the parties and enforceable. Most disputes in the Asansol belt in fact end here.

Conciliation is not a court. The officer cannot award compensation or order reinstatement. What it produces is either a settlement signed by the parties or a failure report recording that no settlement was possible. That report is the formal gateway to adjudication, so the written complaint and attendance at the hearings must be handled carefully from the very first date.

The conciliation officer can also take up a dispute raised by a union on behalf of many workmen, and the resulting settlement binds all of them. Individual workmen who are not members of that union may have to pursue their own complaint, which is a common reason for confusion when workers of one establishment receive different outcomes from the same incident or retrenchment.

After the failure report, the appropriate government decides whether to refer the dispute for adjudication. For most industrial establishments in Paschim Bardhaman that government is the State of West Bengal acting through the Labour Department. Once the reference order is issued, the matter moves from the executive to the judicial side and the Labour Court or Industrial Tribunal takes charge.

A reference cannot be made on the tribunal's own motion, and there is no automatic right to a reference, since the government exercises a discretion it must exercise reasonably. Where a reference is refused, the order can be challenged before the Calcutta High Court. Once the reference is admitted, the tribunal frames issues, hears evidence, allows cross-examination and passes an award.

Territorial jurisdiction follows the place where the workman is employed and where the dispute arose, so matters from Asansol, Raniganj, Jamuria, Kulti and Salanpur proceed through the labour machinery serving Paschim Bardhaman. The Industrial Tribunal at Durgapur hears references made from the district, while the Labour Court handles other categories of dispute as notified by the government. References covering unions or establishments spread over more than one district are normally heard where the industrial establishment with the largest workforce is situated.

Workmen often confuse the two routes. The Employees Compensation Act route is for injury and death compensation and is heard by the Commissioner for Employees' Compensation. The Industrial Disputes Act route covers dismissal, retrenchment, wages, service conditions and collective disputes and ends before the Labour Court or the Industrial Tribunal. Choosing the wrong forum can waste years. A workman who has already filed under one statute should not expect relief in the other for the same grievance, though the two forums can run in parallel where the claims are legally different.

Where the employer is a central government undertaking such as a coal company, the appropriate government for a reference may be the Central Government, and the reference then goes before a Central Government Industrial Tribunal. This distinction is decisive, because a reference made by the wrong government can be struck down for want of jurisdiction. The nature of the industry, not the location of the office, normally decides the question.

A strike is lawful only if the dispute is real, the statutory notice has been given and the dispute is not already before the tribunal. Strikes in essential services, and strikes during the pendency of adjudication, can be restrained, and participating workmen can face disciplinary action. Unions in the Raniganj and Asansol coalfield know this history well, since strike cases have been fought here for decades.

Retrenchment requires notice or wages in lieu, compensation calculated under the Act, and generally observance of the last-come-first-go rule unless there is a valid reason otherwise. Lay-off compensation is also prescribed. Where an employer retrenches without following the statutory formalities, the workman's remedy is a dispute under the Industrial Disputes Act and not a civil suit.

Workmen dismissed for misconduct during a strike can raise an industrial dispute against the dismissal, and the tribunal examines whether a proper domestic enquiry was held and whether the punishment is proportionate to the misconduct proved. Compensation in lieu of reinstatement is common where reinstatement would disturb industrial peace. Each such order must be challenged within the period the Act and the tribunal allow.

Workers and their families frequently have both an employment dispute and a compensation claim arising out of the same event, such as an accident that causes injury and also leads to dismissal for absence. The two proceed in different forums under different statutes, and neither is a substitute for the other. Filing one does not bar the other, though the same loss cannot be recovered twice.

Legal aid for retrenched or dismissed workmen from the Asansol area is available through the District Legal Services Authority. A first consultation should establish which forum applies, what limitation applies and what documents exist, since awards of the tribunal are enforced as decrees and a badly prepared reference cannot be repaired at the end of the case. A workman should also keep a copy of the reference order itself, since the tribunal can grant relief only on the matters actually referred to it and cannot travel beyond those terms.