Legal Dilemma: Can a Senior Sales Executive Be Considered a Workman Under the Industrial Disputes Act?

Dear Seniors,

I am working in a service industry and recently joined this company. There is one legal case going on in the Labor Court. One of our Senior Sales Executives, who was working independently and reporting to the AGM - Sales, was transferred to another place. Instead of joining, he filed a case in the Labor Court under Section 2A of the Industrial Disputes Act.

Can a Sales Executive be treated as a workman under the Act? Please advise.

Thanks,
Aditya

Interpretation of "Workman" and "Industrial Dispute"

To give effect to the objectives of the ID Act, the courts have followed a purposive approach while interpreting the terms "workman" and "industrial dispute." The emphasis is laid on the nature of duties and powers conferred on an employee rather than the designation.

Determining if a Sales Executive is a Workman

To determine if your sales executive is a workman, one will have to review his job charter. What is his pay scale? Section 2(s) of the ID Act defines a workman. Has the labor court accepted the case? Prima facie, I don't think the sales executive falls under the workman category.

I don't see the logic that an executive cannot be a worker. The courts have decided in many cases that a person is a worker based on the work he has done, not based on the designation he is given. So, it will depend on his work and how it matches with the criteria of workers in the act.

"So it will depend on his work and how it matches with the criteria of workers in the act.

Saswata,

I fully agree with this statement, and my post amplifies this concept. Here I added this sentence because somehow I felt that this gentleman does not fall into the worker category as he reports directly to an AGM level office and may be on a higher pay scale. Maybe my prima facie observation about this case could be wrong."

Yes, I agree. We don't know the industry (probably construction, it seems from the poster's profile), but most companies in India refer to their salesmen as executives. So, he is a salesman, which means he is not a manager. He is involved in direct sales activities and will not have any administrative functions.

Let's wait for the OP to reply....

Thanks for your input. In my case, the person working as a Senior Sales Executive is an MBA with around 8+ years of experience. His CTC is Rs. 5.60 L p.a. He is handling an independent profile of managing one major key account. He reports directly to the AGM, but there is no one working under him.

He is involved in business development work, submitting tenders/quotations, obtaining work orders, and signing work orders as an authorized signatory. Will he still come under the Workmen definition under the ID Act? He was arguing that he does not have any financial power; hence, he is a workman.

Thanks,
Aditya