India’s top car manufacturer, Maruti, finally gears up for resumption of production at their Manesar facility on Sunday, which was in news due to irate workers getting their acts together and stopping production for quite some time now. Supplies are now being restored from subsidiaries.
An executive from the company says contract workers have now decided to commence normal production with immediate effect and that Maruti was in a position to resume production. The executive also told that production would soon be resumed at Maruti’s 3 units at Gurgaon from Monday.
It is to be noted that Maruti had halted their production at their Gurgaon and Manesar units on Thursday due to a breakdown in supplies. The strike which was for a day at Maruti’s 3 components units namely Suzuki Castings Limited, Suzuki Motorcycle Private Limited and Suzuki Powertrain Limited came down on Friday after Maruti Suzuki agreed to talk with the irate workers who weren’t happy to sign their ‘good conduct bond.’
Rajesh Kumar, General Secretary of Employees Union, Suzuki Powertrain, told that there had been changes from company’s standpoint, and they have started talking with workers’ representatives in the plant. He told the strike was to demonstrate the unity among all the workers working for Suzuki in India that they were standing for their rights thriving for a common aim.
The recent proceedings that sees Maruti’s management taking initiatives to end the tussle by talking with employees is hopeful of seeing a resolution to this 18-day strike as of Friday. Talks resumed between Maruti’s management, elected representatives, Maruti’s Union called Udyog Kamgaar and the Labour Department of Haryana. Maruti’s management that makes A-Star, Swift and SX4 sedan are, however, adamant about not resuming talks with the workers on strike, although with Haryana’s Labour Minister S.C. Lal Sharma making his presence felt in intervening into the matter, there was an outside chance that the management might soften its stance.
Labour Minister, Sharma, told that he had met with the management and agitated workers separately. He told he was wary of the situation and was hopeful he could sort out the issues soon and then working on solutions for ending the ongoing tussle.
Executives from Maruti told they would be focussing on increasing the production of their Swift and planning to add more skilled workforce at their plants in Manesar.
This is for sure not a good sign for Maruti as they seem to be losing the momentum of sales with the festive season around the corner. Customers are already looking for alternatives when going for a car due to the unavailability of the popular Swift with a long wait period hence are going to Honda showrooms for a new car. The festive season in India is a time where people believe was a good omen for buying anything new. Maruti is missing out this opportunity badly with no proper resolution as to resuming normal production, though the situation looks favourable with Haryana Labour Minister’s intervention in resolving the matter as quickly as possible.
With Honda selling their re-launched Jazz like hot cakes, they are taking advantage of Maruti’s situation. Petrol hikes recently are also not favourable for car manufacturers who are banking on their diesel cars for effective sales where customers have booked around 80,000 Swift diesel versions out of one lakh bookings so far. Resumption of Swift’s production as soon as possible would ease the situation a bit from Maruti’s standpoint.