Labour ferment
With elections just six months away, Karunanidhi has been raining sops on every section. But when it comes to labour, he seems to have no magic formula. This year, Tamil Nadu which has the maximum number of factories in the country at 21,042 employing about 15 lakh people has seen a resurgence of labour trouble in many auto and telecom units. It seems to be linked with the left parties exiting the DMK’s rainbow alliance. TN is known for auto majors (there are seven of them) and other industries rushing here to set up shop. The deputy CM Stalin is the face of industry here which was accentuated recently with his trip to South Korea and China recently to woo investors. But the other side of this coin is the trouble in factories. As on March 31, 2010, TN had 11,583 trade unions and counting if one takes into account all the left’s activities. That’s why Karunanidhi is very visceral when he attacks left leaders today because all the sops he is doling out become neutralized when you have strikes in Hyundai (April/May 2009, June 2010), Nokia (January and July this year), Foxconn and NLC.