Manesar plant to reopen on Sunday; stand-off continues.
With workers at vendor Suzuki Powertrain India Limited (SPIL) calling off their two-day strike, Maruti Suzuki on Friday announced the company would resume operations at the Manesar plant on Sunday. The Gurgaon plant would be made operational on Monday.
A senior executive at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) said, “The supply of engines and transmissions to Maruti Suzuki has resumed…We will focus on bringing back production to normal levels. We will continue to recruit manpower at Manesar.”
The company had suspended operations at both facilities on Friday due to a disruption in supplies from SPIL. Production will remain suspended tomorrow on account of Vishwakarma Puja. With component supply normalising, operations would commence at Manesar on Sunday, a day ahead of scheduled. Suber Singh Yadav, president, Suzuki Powertrain India Employees Union, said the strike was ended after the labour minister’s intervention. “The labour minister said if the strike was called off, our demand for better wages would be accepted,” Yadav said.
He warned the strike would be resumed if the demand was not accepted. On Wednesday, around 5,000 workers across three subsidiaries of Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) -- Suzuki Powertrain India Limited, Suzuki Casting and Suzuki Motorcycle India Private Limited -- went on an indefinite strike in solidarity with the protesting workers at Manesar.
However, no solution is still in sight to the ongoing labour unrest at Maruti's Manesar facility. Though several meetings were held between officials of the Haryana labour department led by the state’s labour minister Shiv Charan Lal Sharma, the MSIL management and representatives of the company’s sole recognised union Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU), the talks remained inconclusive.
The management has made it clear the company would not negotiate with the protesting workers at Manesar. “We will not take back the workers who have been dismissed or suspended for indiscipline, for sabotaging production and for deliberately causing quality problems in the cars manufactured. All workers would have to sign the good conduct bond before resuming work,” said a senior company official.
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Speaking to Business Standard, the labour minister said the government was trying to persuade the management to take back suspended workers who did not have "serious charges" against them. “We are hopeful by tonight or early morning we will reach a solution,” Sharma said.
Sharma said the company was within its rights to ask workers to sign the bond and he was requesting the workers to sign it. “If the company wants in writing the workers won’t sabotage again, what is the problem? The company has the right to demand that from workers,” he said. The state’s labour commissioner Satwanti Ahlawat said she was ‘hopeful’ a solution would emerge. “Maruti is saying it can’t compromise safety by taking the suspended workers back; we are asking it to take some workers back,” she said.