An Industrial Court in Thane early this month told the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), Navi Mumbai that it is liable to pay at least minimum wages to workers and that there cannot be escape from the same, in a complaint filed against it by 23 health staff employed in its Urban Health Centres.
In strong remarks, the court said that there is total lack and shunning away from statutory responsibility, that too, by a statutory body or ‘state’ and that this is ‘certainly not in the order of things’.
The workers were employed with CIDCO as Auxiliary Nurse Midwife, Laboratory Technician and Pharmacist cum Clerk. They had approached the court in 2016 complaining that they had not been made permanent employees despite a long period of service. They were denied benefits of being compensated for public holidays or availing paid privilege leave. They had also claimed pay as per sixth pay commission.
CIDCO had argued before the court that their services were handed over to Panvel Municipal Corporation (also made a respondent) and hence it cannot be held liable to continue their services. It also said that the advertisement of the work was for temporary posts and that providing health facilities is not its work.
Member A. Subramaniam said in his judgment that local in-house recruitment rules that are not notified as per law do not get statutory effect and that considering the permanency of requirement of providing health services, it cannot be said that the nature of service required was temporary.
CIDCO had also argued that local authorities are not defined under minimum wages and adjudication is required on the same. The court said that it is clear CIDCO is functioning like a local authority and that it fails to understand why there is a dispute in this regard. “It speaks volumes of the conduct of the respondents in trying to avoid paying even the minimum wages on some imaginary count or the other,” it said.
The court declared both as engaging in unfair labour practices and directed them to cease and desist from the same. It also declared that the employees have become permanent workers of CIDCO on completion of 240 days of services and that they are entitled to benefits of permanency. Their services, it said, stand transferred to the Panvel Municipal Corporation. It ordered that they be paid all benefits payable to permanent workmen from the date of filing of complaint in end-2016.
