International Affairs- Those Sanctions and These


some 800 workers, including 130 factory staff. The company declared a lock-out in its factory In February. The workers allege that the lockout was declared with the sole purpose of eventually closing down the factory and shifting the processing work of the Murti tea garden to a distant factory belonging to the same group. The latter factory is highly mechanised. The workers, therefore, 'feared that it was only a matter of months, if not weeks, before the management resorted to retrenchment. Sensing these possibilities, the workers started an agitation against the lock-out. The lock-out was lifted in the second week of March following a bipartite agreement between the management and the Workmen represented by the AITUC -affiliated Zilla Cha Bagan Workers' Union.