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In a letter to the Union finance minister, the union urged the Centre to work with Microsoft to operationalise the Chennai factory and for absorbing all laid-off employees of the unit under permanent roles
The Labour Progressive Federation (LPF), a trade union attached to the political outfit Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), today urged the Centre to work with global major Microsoft for operationalising Nokia’s Chennai plant.
In a letter to the Union finance minister, LPF general secretary M Shanmugam urged the Centre to work with Microsoft to operationalise the Chennai factory and for absorbing all laid-off employees under permanent roles.
Around 30,000 people dependant on the Nokia unit operations here had lost their jobs after the suspension of operations last year. Nokia had last year suspended operations at the Chennai factory after Microsoft said it would not own the factory as part of $7.5 billion deal to acquire Nokia’s devices business globally.
The Chennai Nokia unit was attached by the I-T department in an alleged over Rs 21,000 crore tax dispute.
LPF stated Microsoft could start the Chennai plant operations by reinstating all sacked workmen for producing the popular Lumia devices at the Chennai factory.
Earlier, Tamil Nadu government had blamed the erstwhile UPA government’s tax policies for the closure of the facility.
“I would like to point out here Nokia had faced some problems. This is not because of the state government but because of the retrospective taxes imposed by the previous government at the Centre. The state was however trying to find solutions to the problem to the extent possible,” said Tamil Nadu Industries Minister P Thangamani recently.
On February 18, Thangamani, in his response to a question posed by CPI member V Ponnupandi said efforts were on to reopen the factory.
