Manesar Violence: Academic interest on labour issues revive

The Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, had an executive course on industrial relations, but stopped it due to lack of participation from companies, a report in The Economic Times said today.

This has a pointer towards the turbulent employee-employer relationship now prevalent in the manufacturing sector in India, highlighted by the unfortunate violence at Maruti’s Manesar unit.

As businesses boomed in the post liberalisation era, good industrial relations were never a point the companies pondered about, resulting in a gradual break down of employer-employee relationship.

[caption id=“attachment_434707” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  There is an imminent need for a serious look at the issue - before employees and their unions start using violence. Reuters[/caption]

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Maruti is just one incident in a chain. Earlier, a human resource manager was murdered in a labour violence at Pricol in Coimbatore.

In the latest instance, after Maruti, employees at Everest Industries’ unit in Nashik turned violent on Friday and attacked senior executives of the company. According to a report in the Business Standard, one among them-again an HR official - is critical.

There is an imminent need for a serious look at the issue -before employees and their unions start using violence as a means to their end, spreading the spectre of violence across industrial belts in the country.

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Good news is that academically there seems to be a revival of interest in the issue. The ET report says many business schools are reviewing their human resource curriculum to re-include industrial relations.

IIM-Ranchi is organising a two-day conclave on September 21-22, with Manesar violence as the key theme.

Better late than never. The need of the hour is a fresh look at the labour relations.

The revival in the academic interest on the issue is likely to force companies too to look at it seriously.