Mill owners lacked the ability to handle workers
Issues with labour in India have grabbed tremendous attention both in the media and in the film industry. Bollywood movies in the 1970s often portrayed the businessmen as the evil men whose only goal in life seemed to be to extract every pound of flesh of workers and maximise their personal profits at any cost.
Acrimony between management and unions goes back to much earlier than the 1970s though. A case during the British Raj was particularly memorable, and a bit amusing too. Interestingly, even this had much to do with the First World War. Buoyed by the rise in demand, the Ahmedabad mill owners (who had formed an association named The Ahmedabad Millowners Association; source: The Oxford History of Indian Business) were eager to meet that demand in anyway possible. Suddenly, plague struck the city in 1917 and the mill owners saw their ambitions going bust, since a lot of frightened workers ran away to the villages. To keep these workers in, the mill owners took a unique step; they provided the workers with a substantial plague bonus at this time. The plague went packing by the early months of 1918, and these mill owners thought that logically, the plague bonus should go too. However, the workers did not find that logic worth digesting at all and protested vehemently against the removal of the bonus. The situation actually became more alarming for the mill owners when Mahatma Gandhi got into the fray on the side of the workers. In fact the Mahatma went on strike for several weeks with the workers till the mill owners finally had to relent and go to a board of arbitrators to settle the issue.
Issues with labour in India have grabbed tremendous attention both in the media and in the film industry. Bollywood movies in the 1970s often portrayed the businessmen as the evil men whose only goal in life seemed to be to extract every pound of flesh of workers and maximise their personal profits at any cost.
Acrimony between management and unions goes back to much earlier than the 1970s though. A case during the British Raj was particularly memorable, and a bit amusing too. Interestingly, even this had much to do with the First World War. Buoyed by the rise in demand, the Ahmedabad mill owners (who had formed an association named The Ahmedabad Millowners Association; source: The Oxford History of Indian Business) were eager to meet that demand in anyway possible. Suddenly, plague struck the city in 1917 and the mill owners saw their ambitions going bust, since a lot of frightened workers ran away to the villages. To keep these workers in, the mill owners took a unique step; they provided the workers with a substantial plague bonus at this time. The plague went packing by the early months of 1918, and these mill owners thought that logically, the plague bonus should go too. However, the workers did not find that logic worth digesting at all and protested vehemently against the removal of the bonus. The situation actually became more alarming for the mill owners when Mahatma Gandhi got into the fray on the side of the workers. In fact the Mahatma went on strike for several weeks with the workers till the mill owners finally had to relent and go to a board of arbitrators to settle the issue.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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