Industrial Relation Climate and Provision of Labour Welfare Measures in Manufacturing Sector

Abstract

The study was conducted on a sample population of 150 employees of two manufacturing units based in West Bengal, India. Mostly permanent workers at plant level and employees of the zonal offices were considered for the purpose of the study. The overall objectives of the study focus on finding the general causes of job dissatisfaction and industrial fatigue among workers in the manufacturing sector, including the problem of industrial relations and getting proper statutory labour welfare benefits. Improper job scheduling, overburden of work and job complexities were some of the major factors of industrial fatigues that had been detected from structured questionnaire survey. Though majority of the employees revealed that the general industrial climate was good, in many cases employees were not aware of the claim settlement procedure about various provisions under the Gratuity Act and ESI Act leading to delays and payments not being received in time. This study also established the fact that overall industrial relation climate, availability of welfare measures and awareness level of the employees about different social security schemes varies with the educational level, total tenure of the employees in the present company and total years of working experience of the employees in the manufacturing sector. Lastly, lack of proper trade union to reflect employee grievances, proper training and engagement programmes are the other causes of disengagement and attrition of employees in the manufacturing sector, as also reflected from this study.