Maruti to hire 200 contract workers for Manesar

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL), the country’s top car maker, says it will hire around 200 contract workers to ramp up production at its Manesar plant in Haryana, even as a fresh stand-off between the management and workers at the facility intensified. Production at the facility was completely affected for the second day, causing a loss of Rs 80 crore or 2,400 vehicles so far.

The company on Tuesday suspended 16 permanent workers and discontinued the services of 12 trainees. The workers were suspended on charges of sabotaging the production and deliberately causing quality problems in the vehicles manufactured at the plant. This is in addition to the 21 workers suspended and dismissed yesterday.

The company’s managers and engineers have been scouting for experienced and skilled manpower in the Manesar belt. “By the end of the day on Tuesday, they had identified over 200 people and expressed confidence that production would be ramped up in the next few days. These 200 people are likely to join in the next two to three days on a contract basis,” a company spokesperson said.

All the workers were likely to be deputed in a single shift for effective execution of production, the company said.

In June, about 2,000 workers had gone on a 13-day strike at the same plant, crippling production and resulted in a loss of Rs 720 crore or 12,600 units.

The company has put in place contingency measures and started operating the weld shop, press shop and the paint shop at the facility with the help of some line managers and shop-floor supervisors. MSIL has around 290 supervisors at its Manesar plant. Another 50 diploma engineers from the Gurgaon facility were also deputed at the Manesar plant on Tuesday.

“We have started the pre-assembly work by running processes which are highly automated and do not require much manpower,” the spokesperson added.

Till the time of going to press, 36 workers were said to have signed the ‘good conduct bond’ which the company has insisted the workers sign since Monday.

The bond envisages that workers will follow discipline, not involve in absenteeism, not resort to go slow, not get involved in sabotage to production or indulge in activities which would hamper the normal production in the plant.

Phone calls and messages sent to Shiv Kumar, general secretary of the proposed Maruti Suzuki Employees Union, remained unanswered. Sources indicated that the workers were unlikely to relent and sign the bond as insisted upon by the management. The Manesar plant, which produces models such as Swift, DZiRE and SX4, has about 2,500 workers, of which 950 are regular employees.

The management has pointed out that the quality as well as the quantity of cars which are being produced have been deteriorating since the over 2,500 workers called off their 13-day strike in mid June demanding a new separate union, after the management agreed to take back five workers who were earlier sacked.

Sources in Maruti say that the number of cars produced has been at an average is 100 units lower than the daily targets leading to a loss of Rs 3 crore a day. In fact, between 23rd and 25th of August the Manesar plant was supposed to have rolled out 3700 units. However, actual production was about half of the target at around 1570 units. Management sources said what was alarming is the fact that even out of that only 969 units were given a quality inspection clearance-that is 62 per cent of the cars produced.