Riot and aftermath: It's an eerie calm at Maruti's Manesar unit

By Ronojoy Banerjee

A line of workers clad in off-white shirts, light green and blue jackets strut into the manufacturing plant. Chatting, laughing, slapping each other on the backs the young proletarians, mostly in their mid-20s, have a long hard day’s labour ahead of them.

From a distance I can hear a friendly banter between the young blue collared workers on why Gambhir and not Dhoni should be immediately made the captain of India’s cricket team.

[caption id=“attachment_641435” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] What hits you as very odd though is the heavy security cover outside the plant. Firstpost.com/Naresh Sharma[/caption]

As the clock strikes 4 in the evening (start of the second shift) the complex automotive manufacturing processes on the shop floor unfold with Japanese style precision.

What hits you as very odd though is the heavy security cover outside the plant. Black jacketed private guards and roughly 200 Haryana Police constables keeping a constant vigil.

Welcome to Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar factory - six months after the company re-opened the plant following the bloodiest labour violence in its history.

Many within the company say that Maruti has moved on since the 18th of July. According to an old veteran of the company the on-floor work environment in the plant is back to normal.

He says the relations between the engineers, supervisors and workers are “very healthy” too. More importantly production levels have exceeded the average roll out of cars prior to the outbreak of the violence.

The company is currently producing around 38,000 units at the facility per month-or 20 percent more than earlier. It would also reopen in the second half of this year the third plant at Manesar which would produce an additional 15,000 units for which Maruti would hire an additional workforce of nearly 2,000.

The message is clear: Let Bygones be Bygones! Recapture the lost market share that has declined to below 50 percent in the recent years and importantly set an example on how to be professional in the darkest hour.

Despite the air of optimism (or is it denial?) exuded by the management a few pointers suggest that the July 18 chapter is yet to reach a closure in fact it’s far from it. For starters, the precise reasons behind the chilling outburst of violence are yet to be satisfactorily established.

Neither the chargesheet prepared by the Gurgaon police nor the “internal probe” carried out by the company has been able to fix the reasons.

Adding to the complexities is the wide divergence in the probe outcomes of the local police and the company. While the local police chargesheeted around 150 workers for the violence, the company held 546 directly responsible leading to their ouster from the company - the first such large-scale layoff in its history.

On what basis the company reached that staggering number is yet to be made public.

Additionally, in the last six months by some counts Maruti has laid off another 1,800 contract workers as part of its strategy to restrict temp workers only for non-specialised jobs like loading and unloading of vehicles.

Moreover, there are about 149 workers, including the members of the company’s Manesar union, still in jail awaiting judgement.

These suggest that no matter how hard the company tries to move on and leave the past behind it is nearly impossible to isolate itself from the negativity the violence has created or remove the last vestiges of the carnage.

What could further complicate the recovery process is the open support Maruti’s Gurgaon union has shown for the plight of the axed Manesar workers.

In fact, they are now actively seeking a resolution through a provisional committee the ex-Manesar workers have formed by meeting senior Haryana political leaders including the chief minister.

The committee members allege that Maruti has breached the standing orders-or the constitution for worker-management relations-by not holding a free and fair inquiry before dismissing the workers, an allegation that the company dismisses.

Sources also say that the current lot of Manesar workers have formed a new committee to elect office bearers for their union.

A trip to the Manesar facility 7-months after the outbreak of the violence further reinforces the fact that the company is internally unconvinced of the steps it has taken to douse the fire.

While the factory boasts a new look from the outside, including a new CCTV room (that had been vandalized on that fateful evening), a fresh coat of paint and a new Maruti Suzuki logo on the outside it also throws up a strange eerie feeling.

While the police guards took me by complete surprise what further felt like a bolt from the blue was when I was approached by at least three local touts who wanted to know what business I had speaking to the workers.

When they realized that I was a journalist they changed their tone and tenor and politely asked for my visiting card. To my inquiry they said the company had given them the task to keep them updated for any “unwanted visitors.”

Over the last three decades Maruti aided by Suzuki technology has taught the automotive industry how to be frugal yet be unflinchingly conscious about performance.

Where other global auto biggies failed to make a mark in the Indian market the Japanese owned automaker captured over 70 percent of the market making it one of the world’s largest automakers.

Its superior HR practices are part of management lore and therefore how the company best handles this crisis will set a precedent for manufacturing companies across the country for years to come.

Maybe the first step in that direction would be for Maruti to break out of the denial mode. Or are they just being too selective of the reality, as the author of Calvin Hobbes had sardonically quipped? The answer will decide whether they can finally bury the ghosts of July 18th for good or not!

The author is a correspondent with CNBC TV18