What is the main rea­son for ven­tur­ing in­to busi­ness? Is it be­cause one has a lot of mon­ey to spend, the love of peo­ple or the Gov­ern­ment, to be­come fa­mous or to make a dif­fer­ence? In re­al­i­ty one goes in­to busi­ness to make mon­ey. The bot­tom line counts. All the talk about so­cial con­science is on­ly eu­phemistic and pro­vides fod­der for trade unions.

The signs were there for all and sundry to see and take stock. Low oil prices, in­creas­ing cost of pro­duc­tion, fierce com­pe­ti­tion from Chi­na, drop in the de­mand for steel and a gen­er­al slump in the world econ­o­my.

Arcelor­Mit­tal telegraphed its in­ten­tion at a very cru­cial time–Christ­mas 2015–by lay­ing off some work­ers. Ap­par­ent­ly that act did not raise red flags or stir the con­science of the Gov­ern­ment, more so the labour min­is­ter. The In­dus­tri­al Court, re­ly­ing on­ly on law, ruled against the com­pa­ny and to my mind that was the fi­nal straw that broke the Camel's back.

Had the Min­is­ter of Labour shed her self im­por­tance and ap­par­ent very busy sched­ule and en­tered in­to mean­ing­ful di­a­logue with the com­pa­ny at the re­quest­ed time all that brouha­ha could have been avert­ed.

To say that the com­pa­ny was dis­re­spect­ful and harsh be­cause it ben­e­fit­ed from sweet­heart deals is very much self serv­ing. They can counter that ar­gu­ment by stat­ing they pro­vid­ed em­ploy­ment, earned for­eign ex­change and pro­vid­ed rev­enue and was a good cor­po­rate spon­sor. So what is the fate of those work­ers? Will pol­i­tics show its dirty hands or good sense pre­vail?

Sa­hadeo

Ra­goo­nanan