Analysis of industrial disputes

The number of industrial disputes in country has shown slow but steady fall over the past ten years. In 1998, the total number of disputes was 1097 which fell by more than half to 440 in 2006.It is being estimated that this trend will continue in 2007 as well. To support this, only 45 cases of disputes have been recorded during the first four months of 2007. This significant decline is attributed to the serious attempts made by industries to improve industrial relations with their workers. However, a deeper look at the data reveals that the number of mandays (i.e., the industrial unit of production equal to the work one person can produce in a day) lost due to disputes has not come down as significantly. The country, on an average, lost 25.4 million mandays of work annually between 1998
and 2006, which might have affected its industrial output.

More than 2.14 lakh mandays were lost due to work stoppages in 23 industrial disputes during January to March 2007. Though there has been a decline in the number of strikes, the country still witnessed some major strikes between 2004 and 2006, like those in Honda, Escorts, Apollo, and Skumars factories and in SBI bank.


Industrial Disputes



On analyzing the data sector wise, it is clear that the private sector has witnessed greater number of disputes as compared to the public sector. In 2005, only 57 disputes were recorded in public sector which resulted in a wage loss of 79 Crores. In contrast to this, 399 disputes were recorded in the private sector. In the recent past, maximum number of disputes has been recorded in the manufacturing, agriculture and mining and quarrying industries.


Industrial Disputes in Public & Private Sector