The Gurgaon-Manesar–Bawal auto hub in Haryana today limped back to normalcy, though workers continue their agitation in the factories of Rico and Sunbeam, with those factories remaining shut.
Sources in Aituc, the communist party-affiliated trade union, said 95 per cent of workers in these two companies were on strike, but unions were hopeful of a breakthrough in the stalemate at Rico between the management and workers for the past few days, precipitated by the killing of a worker two days ago.
A committee formed by the deputy commissioner, Gurgaon, began negotiations today to sort out the stalemate at Rico. The workers are demanding revocation of the suspension of 16 workers by the management. The talks are to resume day after tomorrow, tomorrow being kept for counting of the state assembly election results.
Aituc National Secretary D L Sachdev said the talks were mainly over the issue of suspension of workers. The talks went off well and both workers and management took part in them, he said.
In Delhi, the Haryana government’s chief secretary, Dharam Veer, met the state labour commissioner and Gugaon’s commissioner of police over the developments in the auto belt. The disruption of production yesterday has impacted supplies. Sona Koyo, which faced disruption at its production unit at Gurgaon yesterday, supplies around 2,000 units of steering systems to its largest customer, Maruti Suzuki. However, its chairman, Surinder Kapur, says: “There has been no loss of production. Employees were given a three-hour permission to attend the protest gathering.” About 52 per cent of the company’s revenues comes from Maruti Suzuki.
Hero Honda’s Gurgaon plant, shut for the full day, produces around 6,000 units of two-wheelers. Sunbeam, which like Rico, supplies components to manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki and Hero Honda, also lost production yesterday.
Honda Motorcycles and Scooters, also facing labour unrest at its plant over the past 45 days, has seen a 50 per cent dip in its production. The drop in production is pegged by the company at 55,000 units so far.
