Right to Strike
In the case of All India Bank Employees vs National Industrial Tribunal 1962 SCR (3) 269, the court held:
“The object for which labour unions are brought into being and exist is to ensure collective bargaining by labour with the. employers. The necessity for this has arisen from an incapacity stemming from the handicap of poverty and consequent lack of bargaining power in workmen as compared with employers which is the reason for the existence of labour organizations. Collective bargaining in order to be effective must be enforceable labour withdrawing its co-operation from the employer and there is consequently a fundamental right to strike a right which is thus a natural deduction from the right to form unions guaranteed by sub-cl. (c) of cl.(1) of Art. 19. As strikes, however, produce economic dislocation of varying intensity or magnitude, a system has been devised by which compulsory industrial adjudication is substituted for the right to strike. This is the ratio underlying the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 under which Government is empowered in the event of an industrial dispute which may ultimately lead to a strike or lock-out or when such strikes or lock-outs occur, to refer the dispute to an impartial Tribunal for adjudication with a provision banning and making illegal strikes or lock-outs during the pendency of the adjudication proceedings. The provision of an alternative to a strike in the shape of industrial adjudication is a restriction on the fundamental right to strike and it would be reasonable and valid only if it were an effective substitute.”
In the case of Mineral Miners’ Union v. Kudremukh Iron Ore Co. Ltd. ILR 1988 KAR 2878, the court held:
“The consequential hardship to go on strike, due to the delay in the action of the authorities under the Act, was held to be unfortunate, by the Supreme Court; but such a delay would not vest a right in the workmen to ignore the mandatory requirements of the law. The remedy of workmen lies elsewhere. As the Act now stands, it is not possible to entertain the plea put forth by the learned Counsel for the workmen.”
In Syndicate Bank v. K. Umesh Nayak, (AIR 1995 SC 319) Justice Sawant opined:
“The strike, as a weapon, was evolved by the workers as a form of direct action during their long struggle with the employer, it is essentially a weapon of last resort being an abnormal aspect of employer-employee relationship and involves withdrawal of labour disrupting production, services and the running of enterprise. It is a use by the labour of their economic power to bring the employer to meet their viewpoint over the dispute between them. The cessation or stoppage of works whether by the employees or by the employer is detrimental to the production and economy and to the well-being of the society as a whole. It is for this reason that the industrial legislation, while not denying for the rights of workmen to strike, has tried to regulate it along with the rights of the employers to lockout and has also provided machinery for peaceful investigation, settlement arbitration and adjudication of dispute between them. The strike or lockout is not to be resorted to because the concerned party has a superior bargaining power or the requisite economic muscle to compel the other party to accept its demands. Such indiscriminate case of power is nothing but assertion of the rule of ‘might is right’.
Thus, initially, employees must resort to dispute settlement by alternative mechanisms. Only under extreme situations when the alternative mechanisms have totally failed to provide any amicable settlement, can they resort to a strike as a last resort.
Even a very liberal interpretation of Article 19(1)(c) cannot lead to the conclusion that the trade unions have a guaranteed right to an effective collective bargaining or to strike, either as part of collective bargaining or otherwise. The right to strike or the right to declare a lockout may be controlled or restricted by appropriate industrial legislation. (Baldev Singh Gandhi v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 2002 SC 1124).
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