Opposing the registration of the workers’ union in the Sriperumbudur plant with the company’s name, Samsung India Electronics Private Limited on Tuesday, October 22 said it had lost USD 100 million due to the strike. Around 1,500 of 1,700 employees had struck work since September 9 with the primary demand of registering their union - Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU). A writ petition was filed by P Ellan, SIWU General Secretary, in the Madras High Court against the Tamil Nadu government labour department for the delay in union registration. 

Samsung India on Tuesday filed an impleading petition in this case. Senior advocate R Rajagopal, representing Samsung, said that the company cannot have any association with a political party. “Samsung is an international company. They have a right to register but do not have the fundamental right to use Samsung’s name. They even went on a strike which caused us a loss of [USD] 100 million,” Livelaw reported him saying. 

Samsung also contested that since the court order would be binding on the company, it was necessary for them to be impleaded in the case. The petition also accused SIWU of “suppressing facts” related to the case. SIWU denied the allegations and said that Samsung should not be impleaded in the case as the union was a matter of the employees and not the employers. 

“My union is using the name Samsung only for trade union purposes which cannot be objected to. Further 90% of trade unions in our country are named using their respective company names. Samsung has no locus standi to be impleaded in the writ petition,” the petition read. It also criticised the Registrar of Trade Union and Deputy Commissioner of Labour for keeping the registration application pending. 

Justice RN Manjula, hearing the arguments, allowed Samsung’s petition and said that Samsung must be included as a party to the proceedings in the interest of justice. The court has posted the case after November 11 as a conciliation meeting is scheduled on November 7.