Workers to take over Khatau Mills in January

December 27: About 6,000 workers of Khatau mill have decided to forcibly take over the custody of the mill from January 1, 1998 and run it ...

December 27: About 6,000 workers of Khatau mill have decided to forcibly take over the custody of the mill from January 1, 1998 and run it on their own.

Meena Menon, vice-president of the Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti, today told presspersons at a press conference at the Bombay union of Journalists that after signing the muster, the workers would not return as is the normal practice, but would stay back and begin a clean-up of the machinery, that has been lying unused in the mill for the last nine months after it closed down.

She informed that workers had to resort to this drastic step due to the management’s failure to give them their salaries for nine months. However, she added, the workers had the right to enter only through the open gates and not violently.

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Expressing confidence about the workers’ ability to run the mill, she said the state government should give them an opportunity to do so. The Samiti has requested the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Tata Electricity Board to provide workers with water and electricity to run the mill. “We are ready to pay the deposit,” Menon said.

According to her, the Samiti has informed Chief Minister Manohar Joshi and other officials of the decision, but there has been no communication from them so far. She also criticised the state government for its failure to implement the directives of the Board of Industrial Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) about payment of workers’ dues, though one-and-a-half month had passed after the issuing of the order. She informed that BIFR had directed the owner of the mill, Panna Khatau, the slain Sunit Khatau’s wife, to sell ready objects and disburse 50 per cent of sale proceeds among workers. The workers were supposed to have been paid by December 20, but the mill owners got an extension for disbursing the amount. Menon said the state government was buying time and suggested the government should take over the mill and hand it over to workers.

She also opposed the government’s stand on the Rent Act. “In the name of development, the state government is opening up central Mumbai to multinationals,” she said.