Auto India, Car India

Welcome back!

The workers refuse to end the strike at the Maruti Suzuki plant at Manesar. This  hit the production at four major plants of Maruti Suzuki for the fifth consecutive day. This clash has taken place for the third time in the past five months.To make the matters worse, the Haryana government, instead of putting in its earnest efforts to resolve the issue, is preoccupied with the by-elections at Hissar. The ruling Congress party is being challenged by Anna Hazare; he had appealed to the people not to vote for Congress. The labor department of the Haryana government has slapped ‘breach of settlement notice’ on the workers who are on strike. They are now supposed to resolve the issue within the next two days.

The strike at Manesar will cripple the production of all the cars. When the workers had earlier gone on strike, not all the workers went on strike. However, this time not a single car will be produced and this will definitely affect the production.

The company workers are not happy with the various human resource policies of the company. One of the workers, on condition of anonymity said, “Even when we went to the toilet, we were regulated in terms of the time spent. In case somebody had fever and was a little slow in carrying out the job assigned to him, he was not only treated badly but his performance parameters were downgraded which impacted his monthly salary.” Sanjeev Kumar, a permanent employee of the company said that workers are subjected to unnecessary pressures, and even the labor department had not protected their interests. The workers allege that the supervisors use foul language, and the workers are not entitles to incentives if they go on sick leaves.

Rajesh Kumar, the general secretary of Suzuki Power Train India said that cause of the strike was that 44 employees who were suspended were taken back, but the 1200 casual workers were not. He said that that those who were taken back had to sign a ‘good conduct bond’ and also had to give other assurances. He said that the workers were shifted from department to another. This might result decrease in their efficiency and give a chance to the company to dismiss them.

The management, however, has a different point of view. They think that the charges are “baseless allegations”. R.C. Bhargava blames the leaders of those who are on strike to be the culprit for the strike. He is the chairman of the company and has been in the company since 1980s. He said that if the workers had any problem with the management, they could have discussed it with the management any time and tried to resolve the issue first and not go on a strike. He thinks that “outside political interference” and personal interests of some people are casing the agitation to aggravate.