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Toyota Kirloskar Motor on Sunday declared a lockout at its two manufacturing plants in Bidadi near Bangalore, following the failure of talks between the management and the union over wage negotiations.
The production at the two plants having an installed capacity of 310,000 units, has been disrupted for 25 days.
"The management and the union have been discussing the charter of demands for the period FY14 (financial year 2013-14) for the past 10 months. As a bipartite agreement was not reached, the Karnataka labour department has conducted seven tripartite meetings to reach a settlement. But the conciliation efforts have not yet resulted in an agreement, leading to the lockout," the Japanese auto major said. The company also said even as the talks were on, a section of the workers, instigated by the union, has resorted to deliberate stoppage of the production line, and threatened supervisors and continuously disrupted business for the past 25 days. "In this background, the company is left with no other option but to declare a lockout to ensure the safety of its workers and management personnel," it added.
The workers' union, however, could not be contacted. Toyota Kirloskar Motor is a 89:11 joint venture between the world's largest auto company Toyota and the Pune-based Kirloskar Group, respectively.
Set up in October 1997, the two plants at Bidadi employs over 6,400 people and has an installed capacity of 3,10,000 units per annum.
The plant rolled out the first car in December 1999. While the first facility has an installed capacity of 1,00,000 units, the second plant has an installed capacity of 2,10,000 units. The two plants are set up on a sprawling 432 acre land parcel in the Bangalore suburb.
The company manufactures the MPV segment leader Innova, the SUV Fortuner, from the first plant since October 1999, while it has also been rolling out the sedans Corolla Altis, the Etios, the hatchback Etios Liva and the luxe sedans Camry, and the Camry Hybrid from the second plant since December 2010. The company also sells the premium SUV brands Prado, the Land Cruiser and the hybrid sedan Prius as completely built units.
