Question

I am a supervisor at a modern soap factory built about ten years ago at Ghaziabad, which is a fast developing town in Uttar Pradesh and lies about 18 miles away from Delhi, the capital city The factory is situated in beautiful and what one might call rural surroundings. The factory is itself surrounded buy cultivable land and many of the factory workers own ancestral property here. The pattern of living of the workers, in most cases, conforms to the joint family system.

I feel that production at our factory has never come up to management's expectations for several reasons. One of these is heavy absenteeism, for during the agricultural season the factory workers stay at home to cultivate their own land. Since the worker is also a farmer, there is no dearth of food, and his factory job only provides him with liquid cash. Because he does not depend upon factory wages alone, the factory worker takes things easy, which results in a situation of chronic absenteeism in the factory. About six years ago, within the same factory compound, a fruit processing unit was also added by the company. The jobs in this unit are seasonal; that is, only during the fruit-growing season it does work to its full capacity.

The unit employs 22 workers. All of them are given seni skilled grade Ejobs. During the season
berdes the bottling of fruit products, fruit juices are also tried in wooden casks and stored up, so they
ce boiling juice and other ingredients into syrups or jams, tolting, capping, tabeling, storing, and
Keeping the premises dean
During the lean period the major portion of all these jobs come to an end and therefore part of the
workforce is transferred to the soap plant and allied sections to make good labour shortages which
occur there. However, a small portion of workers who remain in the fruit processing plant are given
light jobs such as keeping the premises clgan rolling the barrels, and do on. The only exceptions are
the two workers who are engaged in filling and capping bottles. They have an obvious job title. Bottle
Filler and Capper. All workers in the fruit-processing Unit are permanent employees. When these two
workers---Bottle Filler and.Copper-see others having an easy time they become disgrunded and
demand higher wages, or that others do the filling and capping jobs as well. They cannot be given
higher grades because in the soap factory people doing almost similar jobs are in grade and they
too would then claim higher grades. The other workers cannot be made to do these jobs because
production would suffer. The bottle filler and capper have done the job for years and have attained
great speed in doing it. Others cannot match that speed
I first cajoled those two workers and also counseled them but without success. Finally, I threatened
them with punitive action. This has only resulted in a go slow response from them. I am faced with a
dilemma. I am convinced that so far as my unit is concerned these two workmen's demands are just
and fair since the workload on them is definitely more than on the others in the unit and also their jobs
are more skilled than that of the rest of the workers there However, in the context of the entire factory.
their demands cannot be conceded.
Questions
1. What is the main problem in this case?
2. What are your views about the problem as the supervisor?
3. What would have been your way of handling the problem as supervisor and as part of the
management? Explain the possible consequences of the action taken to restore productivity in
the food processing unit
4. Suggest possible measures to resolve the major problem faced by the organization.

Answer 1

Answer:

जिंदगी के लिये जान ज़रूरी है, जीने के लिये अरमान ज़रूरी है, हमारे पास हो चाहे कितना भी गम, लेकिन तेरे चहरे पर मुस्कान ज़रूरी है।