Vijay Sankar lighting the 'kuthuvilakku' in the presence of Governor of Tamil Nadu, Dr K Rosaiah.
Vijay Sankar delivered the keynote address at the 93rd Annual General Meeting of The Employers’ Federation of South India (EFSI) held at Hotel Savera on 26 July 2013.
The Governor of Tamil Nadu, Dr K Rosaiah, was the chief guest. Thyagu Valliappa, President, KS Venkiteswaran, Chairman, Tamil Nadu committee, and TM Jawaharlal, Secretary of EFSI, were present.
To lift a large percentage of our population out of poverty for good, the need of the hour is for additional good non-farm formal private sector manufacturing jobs.
The corporates in our country don’t want to increase their permanent work force.
While the services sector will continue to grow, there is an urgent need to focus on accelerating the growth in the manufacturing sector.
A. The first stakeholder: The Government must bring in enabling labour laws. There has to be a level of trust between the Government and Industry and the Government must consider that Industry will be ethical and treat employees by fair means. Here I think EFSI will have a large role to play.
I emphasise that the labour law change is an extremely important element in the revival of hiring in the manufacturing sector.
B. Workers will have to accept that times have changed and if they cling on to their old values and rules, the growth of the industry will be affected. They need to unlearn old habits and learn new skills required to meet the changes in technology, improving productivity and also being more flexible.
C. Management has to think of being a lot more ethical and transparent, treating the employees fairly and spending on skills development. Since the so called new Millennials are joining the workforce, the approach to work and work force relations has to undergo a sea change. The new young faces are looking for a different culture where collaboration and sharing is predominant - management has to recognise this and work closely with them.
D. If Trade Union leaders do not recognise the competitive market in which industry operates, then the employment will shift out of Tamil Nadu or South India or India itself to other places where labour is more flexible.
The Sanmar Group is a large employer with over 5000 largely skilled employees, globally in manufacturing locations between India, Mexico, Egypt and the USA and a billion dollars in revenue.
We are strongly focused on our reputation and the value systems embedded in our organisation. We have always tried to live up to and go beyond the scope of legislation as far as labour laws go. A lot of emphasis is also placed in skilling and re-skilling of workers and managerial personnel.
The prosperity of the employees is linked to the prosperity of the organisation - therefore we have introduced measures of performance related pay for many years now.
Employees are also empowered to take decisions on matters concerning their work through work and cell councils.
We have in our organisation a very strong industrial relations department, which has got direct access to the Group Corporate Board".
Vijay Sankar addressing the gathering. Seated on the dais (from l to r): KS Venkiteswaran, Chairman, Tamil Nadu Committee EFSI, Thyagu Valliappa, President, EFSI, Governor of Tamil Nadu, Dr K Rosaiah, TM Jawaharlal, Secretary, EFSI.
The GDP growth fell to a decade low of 5.0% in 2013. IIP recovery remains fragile. The latest data released for the month of May 2013 indicates a negative 1.6% growth. The rupee has depreciated by 13% since April. The current account deficit to GDP ratio touched an all time high of 4.8%. |