10 July 2020

...[O]ver a month after negotiations began between the workers, labour department officials, and representatives of the exporter, there is no resolution yet. 

On Thursday, some workers said that they were approached by factory officials who urged them to resign. "Two factory officials came to a worker's residence in Pandavapura coercing them to resign saying that the factory will not open again. They had lists of details of other workers who were in the unit," Jayaram KR of the Garment and Textile Workers Union (GATWU) told TNM.

The New Trade Union Initiative claimed that this was an attempt by Gokaldas Exports (GE), a major apparel exporter in India, to intimidate the workers. "GE has been sending their managers to the factory to intimidate workers and aggravate their already soaring anxiety. They are defaming the union, our affiliate Garment and Textile Workers Union, claiming that the union is delaying the resolution of the dispute by filing complaints which will eventually end up in court. GE is playing with the lack of trust workers have in the judiciary as a method of building coercive pressure on workers to resign," Gautam Mody, General Secretary of NTUI said in a statement...

"ECC -II is the only one where a majority of the workers are unionised and has been so for over several years now. Targeting this factory alone amounts to a fundamental violation of right to freedom of association," Gautam Mody said...