The Madras High Court has granted an interim stay to the enforcement of a Government order brought forth by the Tamil Nadu Government on minimum wages for workers in the garment sectors in Tiruppur.
Trade union representatives have stated that the Hosiery Minimum Wages Act 1960 was amended in 2016 and a section of domestic knitwear workers was included in 2018. In January of last year, the Government issued a draft of fixing minimum wages for the garment unit workers under the Hosiery Minimum Wages Act, and the order was finalised in February of this year. That said, workers were to lose a D.A. of Rs. 1,700 (US $ 19.88) a month under the new order.
The trade unions appealed this order to the High Court, and the Court has granted a stay. G. Sampath, the general secretary of the CITU-Banian worker union in Tiruppur, said the garment unit workers have mostly been paid according to a tripartite agreement entered into between the management and trade unions, but there were failures in the calculation of minimum wages. The new order applied to domestic and export unit workers. It was decided to go to the court because a monthly reduction of Rs. 1,700 (US $ 19.88) would impact the workers severely.
