The scheduled meeting between the management of Maruti Suzuki and the contract workers at their Manesar plant assisted by the intervention of Haryana Government in hopes of ending the strike which lasted for 21 days now have broken down with 3 workers being detained so far by the police.
Police reported to have detained 3 workers’ representatives namely Shiv Kumar, Sonu Gujjar and Ravinder Kumar when talks broke down on Friday failing to come up with any resolution.
President of Kamgar Union, Maruti Udyog, Kuldeep Janghu, voiced that all negotiations had been cut down and was unsure when talks would resume again.
Kamgar Union of Maruti Udyog, as earlier seen, did represent the workers working at the Manesar plant as part of the negotiations when management did refuse direct talks with the union that is the Employees Union of Maruti Suzuki. The 3 workers that were detained belonged to the MSEU.
S.C. Lal Sharma, Minister for Employment and Labour, Haryana State, did intervene and spoke with the workers at Manesar plant and Maruti’s management. Representatives of Maruti’s Union (MUKU) were also present on Friday, but failed to arrive at a definite conclusion yet.
Today, the proceedings did continue with officials of Haryana Labour Department present, but nothing was conclusive.
The ongoing tussle between Maruti’s management and contract workers erupted on August 29th. Maruti had to prevent workers’ entry into the factory when workers did not sign the ‘good conduct bond’ that Maruti had forcefully enforced on its workers to sign thus creating ruckus in production when workers deliberately tried to sabotage parts of new cars and avoided it being shipped to dealerships and made them stay at the assembly unit for a longer period of time.
Supporting their colleagues at Manesar were Maruti’s Suzuki Motorcycle India Private Limited and Suzuki Powertrain that boycotted work on Wednesday, but the strike was cut short on Friday.
The bond made to forcibly sign were not completely acceptable to workers who were adamant about not signing bonds that were illegal hence creating confusion for quite some time now necessitating in stopping production of cars and delay in cars actually getting to dealerships when cars were either sabotaged or not boarded for dealerships. Maruti is already losing its new Swift’s sales due to wait periods being long and customers rushing in to Honda dealerships for purchase of cars in the upcoming festive season. Festive seasons are considered auspicious for a buy hence people neglecting Swift’s late delivery and going for cars with less wait period. The situation, at the moment, looks bleak from Maruti’s standpoint with top officials failing to come to a conclusion regarding the ongoing situation.
