Maruti dithers on lockout, union talks tough on demands

New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki India has been going back and forth on when to reopen the Manesar plant, but the National Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) has already begun setting the agenda for negotiations with workers when the lockout is lifted.

Manesar has been under lockout since 18 July, when a deadly riot left one senior manager dead and scores severely injured. Almost a month after the carnage, at least 13 members of the erstwhile Maruti Suzuki Workers Union have been arrested but most other workers have remained in hiding, fearing a brutal crackdown by the police.

Speaking to Firstpost, NTUI’s Gautam Mody made it clear that workers want the lockout to be lifted immediately, want wages for July and August (till the day the plant does reopen) to be paid, and negotiations on a “charter of demands” to be initiated with the Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union (MSWU) members. He termed the lockout as illegal and Maruti’s statements in the media about offering housing to workers and increasing their wages a “malicious campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the elected workers’ union”.

But aren’t the office-bearers of this union, which has still not been derecognised by Maruti, all inside a Haryana jail? “The Union is not only made up of office-bearers but comprises more than 3,000 members. If all union office-bearers are behind bars, workers are free to elect new representatives, a new leadership. But under no circumstances should the Maruti management go about spreading a malicious campaign about offering sops to workers like housing and increased wages without proper negotiations. There is a charter of demands from the union and negotiations should happen within its framework”.

The workers went on a rampage on that fateful July day allegedly because there was a disagreement with the management over reinstatement of a suspended colleague. But before that, workers had been conducting a long, painful negotiation through MSWU over wages and their primary demand was that there should be equal pay for equal work. Contract workers outnumbered regular employees at Manesar and they were being paid almost a third of what a regular employee was taking home despite doing the same kind of work for the same hours.

So essentially what Mody is saying is that these negotiations should be started afresh.

Meanwhile, the Maruti management appeared to blow hot and cold over lifting the lockout. A company spokesperson said lockout cannot be lifted unless the company is assured of safety of all its workers and managers at Manesar. Over the weekend, Chairman RC Bhargava had said that a decision on lifting the lockout would be taken this week - but he denied any plans for lifting the lockout today.

But BusinessLine quoted Chief Operating Officer (Administration, HR, IT) SY Siddiqui as saying that Maruti will take a call on lifting the lockout at its Manesar car production facility by Thursday or Friday. The story said the plant is likely to start by making the Swift at the highly automated Plant B, followed soon by Plant A, which makes the DZire, A-Star and SX4 sedan.

Investigation on the violence of 18 July was discussed by senior company officials with the Haryana police this afternoon. Siddqui also told the daily that they will take a call on “which section of workers we can call back for starting production”. With 137 of the approximately 3,000 workers arrested and the number set to increase with the investigation, finding new workers to start operations at Manesar may prove a challenge. The story said some labourers may be shifted from the Gurgaon facility as well. But unless Maruti begins engaging with workers in a meaningful and sustained way again, the reopening of Manesar may not be a smooth process.