A second union at Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant will not be recognised, the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government today assured the car maker.
The move comes after Managing Director Shinzo Nakanishi and top officials of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) met the chief minister this evening.
The management is concerned that a multiplicity of unions with political affiliations would hinder operations and be inefficient in addressing workers’ concerns.
Talks between the management and labour department officials in Hayana remained inconclusive today. If no resolution is arrived at over the next two-three days, over 200,000 workers from across 65 unions of the auto companies in the region would observe a two-hour strike on June 20.
The All India Trade Union Congress (Aituc), meanwhile, has announced a hunger strike in the Gurgaon-Manesar belt on Friday.
“The Haryana labour department officials had indicated they would meet the workers’ representatives and try to resolve the issue today. There have been no talks with the workers yet. The joint action committee formed by the workers has decided that a hunger strike would be observed in the auto companies in the Gurgaon-Manesar belt on Friday followed by a tool-down strike on Monday,” said Aituc secretary D L Sachdev.
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The strike entered the 12th day today resulting in production loss of 11,400 units.
Sources close to the negotiations said on Monday evening four workers’ representatives had conceded to the management’s offer to set up a individual entity to monitor employees’ issues at the facility. However, they retracted on the agreement after consultation with other members.
The workers have been demanding recognition of a new union — Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU) — independent of the existing one which, they allege, is dominated by workers of the Gurgaon plant.
The management has suggested a modification in the structure of the existing union. The company had agreed to establishing individual bodies at the Manesar and Gurgaon facilities to deal with plant-level issues. Besides, they had proposed the formation of a governing council comprising workers’ representatives from both the plants to deal with corporate level issues like negotiating wages. However, the management made it clear they would not accept any union which had members from outside or with political affiliation.
On Tuesday, the management had even agreed to treat sympathetically the 11 workers who were sacked for instigating the strike at the facility.