Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), which witnessed sporadic instances of labour unrest at its Manesar facility, is set to complete the process of regularization of contract workers at the unit by the end of next month. The company will initiate the procedure to regularize contract workers at the Gurgaon unit by March next year.
The move is in line with the company’s decision to hire only permanent or regular employees for core production activities post the violent standoff between the workers and the management at the Manesar unit earlier in July this year. The incident had resulted in the death of senior management executive and left injured around 100 officials in the company.
S Y Siddiqui, chief operating officer (administration & human resources), MSIL said, “We are holding interviews and verifying the applications of 1870 contract workers who worked at Manesar prior to the incident on July 18. Of these, a batch of 200 workers will join work by the end of this month and another 300 workers would begin work from the end of November.”
Post the completion of the regularization process the strength of the workforce at Manesar will increase to 4500 workers from the current 3822 workers. Daily production at the facility will go up by 15 per cent to 1950 vehicles by December from 1700 vehicles rolled out before July 18 this year.
Siddiqui informed to ensure workers’ satisfaction, the management has already inked a new wage agreement with the permanent employees at Manesar. “Of the 1100 regular workers we have at Manesar, 630 are permanent employees. In the absence of a union at
the unit, we have signed wage increase agreements with these workers individually.”
In a historic pact inked with the Gurgaon-based Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU) in September, Maruti Suzuki increased gross salary by Rs 14,800 per month spread over a period of three years for permanent workers in the company. While 75 per cent of the
gross salary increment will be given in the first year, MSIL will give 12.5 per cent each in the second and third years.
The gross salary of an entry-level worker in the company is Rs 23,500 at present. As per the new wage structure, the average entry-level salary will increase to Rs 37,800 over the next three years. For an experienced worker at Manesar the increased salary will stand at Rs 39,800.
The revision is considered to be very healthy, considering that the company had given an increment of Rs 9,300 when wages were revised last in 2009.
The increments and regularization process comes on the back drop of the repeated labour strifes witnessed at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar unit. The company has lost production of over 110,000 vehicles and revenue to the tune of Rs 4000 crore in four instances of labour trouble since June last year.
