Arvind Ltd workers win a pay hike

Hit by a dip in its net profit,textile major Arvind Ltd took the first step in resolving the wage hike issues of its workers by signing a formal wage settlement agreement with Textile Labour Association

Hit by a dip in its net profit,textile major Arvind Ltd took the first step in resolving the wage hike issues of its workers by signing a formal wage settlement agreement with Textile Labour Association (TLA) on Friday. As per the agreement,the monthly wages of about 13,000 textile workers of the company have been raised by Rs 1,900.

We are very pleased that we could settle the wage increase issue in 48 hours after ATMAs decision to let each unit negotiate its own package. Each worker will get about Rs 1,900 per month after certain statutory deduction which is an average increase of 27 per cent in take home wages for workers of all our Ahmedabad units. Our average cost of wage per worker (including all other allowances and benefits) is Rs 11,600 and that will go up to Rs 13,800 after this revision, said Jayesh Shah,Director and CFO,in a statement issued here. The hikes are effective from July 1,2012.

Arvind is the first mill to have implemented the wage hike,while the other textile mills like Asarwa,Ankur and Ashima are still to follow suit. Hit by labour strike,Arvind had posted a 48 per cent dip in its net profit for the quarter ending June 30,2012.

We are grateful to Arvind management for considering our request for uniform increase in wages for each worker and also agreeing with our request for an increase of Rs 1,900-2,000. We had started out wanting to negotiate a hike of at least Rs 3,000 for the worker but this is a good hike. Hopefully other mills will take a cue and implement the wage settlement agreement according to the new structures we discussed on Wednesday, said Amar Barot,General Secretary of TLA.

This development comes after the industry witnessed a three-week strike in June held by around 6,000 textile mill workers demanding a wage hike of 40 per cent across four major mills in the city.

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Jayesh Shah