Page 90 - Gujar Mal Modi

a settlement in sight. Mr. Modi then called a meeting of representatives of the

workers. After listening to them for a brief while, he dictated a note in Urdu,
which was to form the basis of the settlement. When the workers heard the con-

tents of his award they were satisfied and readily agreed to call off the strike. Mr.
Modi’s words to them at that time, though simple, are memorable. He said: “We

are all members of the same family and the mill is our home.”

Similarly in 1956, owing to heavy losses, when there was another strike by work-
ers for higher wages and bonus, the leaders of the strikers adopted all kinds of

tactics to browbeat the management. They did not want the management to
have a direct dialogue with the workers. But Mr. Modi ignored their wishes and

advice. He sent his officials to the workers’ meeting and later went there himself.
He calmly advised them to approach him directly for the redressal of their griev-

ances, if they had any. This bold and direct approach helped to clear much of the
misunderstanding that existed between the management and the workers. He

often acted as an arbitrator at the instance of workers themselves between the
workers and the management and his decisions were always fair to the employ-

ees who accepted them whole-heartedly.

Being an enlightend employer Mr. Modi appreciated the need for responsible

trade unionism for healthy industrial relations and played a big role in establish-
ing a Rashtriya Mazdoor Sabha. But as an employer he believed in a personalised

approach to labour relations. It was indeed his policy of regarding and treating
his workers as his own to whom he was nearer than anyone else which formed

the bed-rock of happy industrial relations at Modinagar.

Invariably every year when Mr. Modi’s birthday was cele brated, workers held
meetings and felicitated him. He accepted their good wishes with folded hands

and he would announce various measures of public welfare to show his love and
concern for the workers and the inhabitants of the town. For instance, in 1966

the workers felicitated him in the Workers’ Club of the Textile mills and placed
before him the problem of admission of their wards to schools. While acceding

to their demand for another school he laughed and said that they were increas-
ing the population at such a speed that he had to open a new Junior School

every year to meet the increasing educational requirement of their wards. He,
then, enjoined on them to restrict their families. As a measure of encouragement

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