Production comes to a halt at Hero's Haridwar unit

Haridwar is Hero's largest facility and produces Splendor and Passion bikes

Within four months of inking a revised wage pact and quelling a labour unrest at its Gurgaon facility, the country’s largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp (HMCL) is now facing fresh challenges at its Haridwar unit with workers stopping production work to demand the reinstatement of a permanent employee suspended by the company management.

A source close to the development said, “Production work has come to a halt at the Haridwar facility since 10 pm on Thursday. All workers at the unit are on strike demanding the reinstatement of a permanent worker suspended by the management on flimsy grounds.”

The Haridwar unit is Hero MotoCorp’s newest and largest facility and produces best-sellers like the Splendor and Passion in three shifts. The company rolls out 8,500-9,000 units every day from the facility. According to union representatives in Delhi, Hero MotoCorp employs around 5,000 workers at Haridwar, 600 of whom are on the company’s payrolls.

The Gurgaon and Dharuhera units manufacture 5,500-6,000 units a day each, but have over 1,200 permanent workers.

The labour strife comes at a time when companies in the automobile industry are stepping up production to build inventory for the upcoming festive period.

The unrest in Hero’s Haridwar unit is the latest in the series of labour strikes in the automobile industry in India in recent months. Pune-based Bajaj Auto earlier this month resolved a 50-day standoff with workers at its Chakan facility, who were demanding 500 equity shares of the company at Re 1 each as part of a wage compensation package.

Hero itself quelled a wage dispute with the union at its Gurgaon plant in April this year by doling out wage increments of an average of 25% at Rs 9,000 per month spread over a three-year period.

In the last few years, the auto sector has lately been plagued by a series of labour disputes across companies such as Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hyundai Motor and General Motors. The violent labour scuffle at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar unit on July 18, 2012 had left dead a senior management executive and had injured close to 100 officials in the company.