Auto India, Car India

Welcome back!

The strike at the Manesar plant became worse on Sunday as the management of Maruti Suzuki India sacked ten workers from the factory. It also sacked ten trainee workers and another ten employees, in an attempt to bring the situation under control.

On Friday, the situation had gone out of control once again when about 15, 000 workers from the plant and other companies in the area went on strike. They started the strike in the second half of Friday, which caused the work to stop. These laborers were demanding that the causal workers should be taken allowed to resume work.

Anil Kumar, the president of the Suzuki Motorcycle India Employees Union had remarked that, “It is unfair not to take back the casual workers while the permanent workers have been allowed to resume work.” They sat in front of Manesar plant and were ready to go to work, but were not willing to return to their job till the management did as it had promised earlier. Kumar added that the management did not pay any heed to them.

The company, however, claimed that it had sacked the workers because they caused violence in the premises of the Manesar plant. The management claims that it apparently ‘rescued’ about 100 workers who were being “held under duress” by the workers who went on strike. The leaders of the trade union however, allege that three workers were injured in a firing on Sunday morning at a factory owned by a Suzuki subsidiary company.

The company issued a statement that “On Saturday, the company had similarly rescued 355 workers with the help of the police. Many of these workers had been beaten up by the striking workers,…With the rescue of about 450 people, the number of striking workers in the factory premises has come down to around 1,500. About 170 regular workers have stayed away from the strike from the star.”

The management claims that the violence infringed an agreement that was signed between the workers and the management on October 1, in front of officials from the Haryana government. A senior official of the Haryana Labour Department claimed that, “We are trying to solve the issue within the contours of the October 1 agreement which was agreed to by all workers as well as the Maruti management. There is no scope for fresh protest as all issues were worked out and agreed upon by all the concerned parties.”

The Haryana government has two major issues to resolve: it has to resolve the ongoing crises at the Manesar plant and also prepare for the by-election in the Hissar consistency where Anna Hazare has appealed to people not vote for the ruling Congress party.

People from the industry believe that this could hinder an immediate resolution of the problem at Manesar. On October 1, the workers had agreed to sign the good conduct bond that stated, among other things, that the workers would not incur any harm to the cars placed on the assembly line. The management on the other hand had promised to take back 18 trainees. This agreement could not hold back the workers to go on strike on Friday afternoon.

The violence at Manesar has made the situation go from to worse and the company is suffering huge losses.