M&M workers call off 'tool down' strike

A 15-day-long strike, waged by workers in the Nashik plant of automotive major Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), was finally called off as the company management and the workers’ union reached a compromise on Monday.

Workers of the Nashik plant had gone on an indefinite ‘tool down strike’ from May 4 in protest against the suspension of Mahindra Union President Madhav Dhatrak

by the management and the company’s alleged delay in signing a wage agreement for the past 22 months.

“The company management and M&M Workers’ Union (Internal), at a joint meeting on Monday night, reached the settlement. Both have decided to settle the issue of the union president’s suspension and wage agreement within the next 10-12 days (by May 30, 2009),” the union office-bearer told Business Standard.

A 15-day tool down strike by the workers had led to heavy production losses to M&M and its 350 vendors across the country. M&M itself has reportedly lost the production of 6,000 units in the past 13 working days, which is estimated at around Rs 325 crore.

The total production loss to 350 vendors of M&M are estimated at Rs 225 crore during the last 10 days.

M&M’s facility is located in the Satpur area of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) in Nashik. The Nashik facility manufactures 486 utility vehicles daily — 240 utility vehicles, ‘Scorpio’ & ‘Xylo’ on the same assembly line, 180 Bolero utility vehicles and 66 sedan cars ‘Logan’. The plant has 4,450 employees, including 2,750 permanent employees, 1,200 temporary employees and 500 apprentices.