TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2024
Team Herald
SANGUEM: The local employees of the multi-national soft drink company in the Sanguem Industrial Estate on Sunday said that almost 90 per cent of the workers currently employed at the factory are locals.
Addressing media persons, they informed that these workers are mostly from Sanguem, neighbouring villages and a few from Margao, who earlier worked at the factory during its operations at Arlem.
They claimed that the allegations by a section of disgruntled local workers that the company is presently being run with migrant labourers are “false and baseless”.
Agitated over the baseless allegations, the workers claimed that during the course of factory operations at Sanguem, the company officials never ill-treated the locals, but on the contrary they were good to the local workers and provided them the opportunity to complete ITI during their course of employment at the factory.
They claim that around eight workers from Sanguem have made unwanted and baseless allegations against the company for their selfish gains and this has affected the work atmosphere in the factory.
Labour contractor Anand Naik claimed that a very few workers from the locality where the factory is situated have been raising “unwanted” demands and resorting to some tactics, which affected the production.
Naik informed that when the Government announced the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19, the company had asked for some workers to stay home, but did not retrench them.
He said the company provided the workers with all statutory benefits besides others including tea allowance. Naik claimed that he was unhappy with this group of select workers, who tried to create problems by staying away from work. “Fed up with their absenteeism, I had even asked for termination of my contract,” Naik informed.
“During the course of lockdown, the company officials called me on several occasions to get the employees to work at the factory, but they were not ready and willing to join and wanted all the 130 casual workers to be employed simultaneously, which was not possible during the lockdown,” Naik said.
“Given the current issue raised by a section of workers, the company has backtracked on increasing its production at the factory and this will cause problems to others,” he said.
Uguem sarpanch Arjun Gaonkar urged the workers to remain united and work for the betterment of the factory as most of them are locals. If the factory shuts down, it will have a serious impact on the employees.
He requested the section of workers to resolve their issues with the company officials.
