August 12: The management of Caprihans India Ltd, a Mumbai-based plastics company, has changed hands recently making retrenchment a near reality for a large number of employees in the company. The company is now part of a British subsidiary of the German group European Vinyl Corporation.

The management is now busy coaxing the staff and employees to retire from their services.

In fact, the motivated stand was taken as early as in January this year. That month, the erstwhile management of Caprihans India Ltd had directed four major staff members to be transferred to the other units of the organisation in Mumbai. When it was found that there were no vacancies at the other units in Mumbai, the management had even considered shifting those employees to some other part of the country.

Apparently, the idea was to bring down the number of those employed at the Mumbai units.

As the number of employees in the organisation was more than 100 (113) the management could not declare a closure on their own as the law stipulates that certain permissions had to be obtained from the state government before initiating such a step. The company had to follow the legal procedure.

Hence, January onwards, in order to bring pressure on the workmen, the company applied for a lay off permission with the Labour Commissioner at Thane, declaring that all the 113 workmen were seeking permission for lay off.

Again on March 26 this year the company displayed an application for closure seeking permission from the state government to close down the unit at Kolshet. However, copies of the application for closure were not circulated to any of the authorities. The said notice of application was only put up on the notice board at the company.

After the closure notice, dated March 28, 1997, Caprihans India Ltd offered a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) to the employees. The notice stated that workmen who have completed more than 20 years of service shall be paid 60 days compensation and 15 days of gratuity and those who have completed less than 20 years of service shall be paid Rs 2.65 lakh.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.