Procedure to close industry below 50 employees under pending adjudiction before Labor court
Querist :
Anonymous
(Querist) 11 March 2011
This query is : Resolved
Dear Sir,
I would like to have your personal advise in below scenario.
We have 6 small various companies in at one campus and same location with different name deploying less than 50 manpower on daily basis since more than one year. We have two union at work place. We have made settlement with majority of Union.The other union have not accepted the said settlement hence they have given separate charter of demand and later this dispute referred to labor court for adjudication. Meanwhile they have resorted to illegal strike in April 2007 and till date they are abstaining from the work. By the way we have submitted an application to Labour court to declare this act as illegal strike and case is now on leading evidence from our end.
In such situation can we close our sister concern ?
Do we need to seek permission from Labour court where dispute of illegal strike is pending.
What is the procedure for applying closure of establishment?
What reason we can lead to justify the closure?
What can we do with the employees who are with majority of union and are working in this sister concerns?
Would appreciate your help and reply.
Thanking you,
Regards,
Rita
H. S. Thukral
(Expert) 21 March 2011
I received your message in my profile in comments cols and therefore could not give you my opinion as there is no way to reply therein.
Your settlement with one Union though a majority one is binding between the parties to the settlement only. If it was a settlement through and before conciliation officer then it would have been binding on all the workmen.( Pl. read section 18 of the ID Act)
since you are employing less than 50 employees you don't have to seek permission of any authority to close down the undertaking. You can close the undertaking on payment of retrenchment compensation. A bonafide closure does not amount to change in service conditions and therefore provisions of 9A or 33A of ID Act will not apply.
