Karnataka Labour Minister Shivaram Hebbar on Monday revealed that vandalism which was incident in the Wistron Corporation plant in Kolar district last year was a result of its own mistake as the company failed to resolve the grievances of the workers.
Hebbar mentioned that the company has resumed the operations in Kolar post cutting down the contract employee number to 2,657 this month from the earlier count of 8,490.
In a question asked by Legislative Council Member, Govindraju, Hebbar answered, “Neither the Labour department nor the government is at fault in this case at all.”
As per the questions presented by Karnataka Legislative Council, Hebbar revealed the plant had made gross violations of the given norms by the government, like overboard hiring of workers keeping the contract system apart from altering the 8 hour shifts to 12 hour shift before giving proper information to the employees.
He further explained, “Their new attendance system failed to function due to some technical snags. This company had failed to address in-time, hence, a section of the employees went on a rampage in the plant premises on December 12, 2020. Apart from this, the company had credited their salaries late on December 11, 2020. Therefore, the employees went berserk.”
Hebbar said Wistron continued employing under contract system and did not inform the government departments. He claimed, “The company which started its operations from September 1, 2020, with 3,000 employees, soon its employee strength reached 9,833 by end of October. The company neither informed nor took prior permission from departments concerned.”
He further added, “The plant’s Human Resource department should have addressed distressed employees’ concerns effectively. Due to their failure and negligence, aggrieved employees went berserk.”
The minister said the labour department has initiated all the attempts to support the aggrieved employees as the dues were all cleared of the employees, which was the reason for the violence invoked by the workers in December last year.
