Security beefed up workers allege harassment

A day after the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered Maruti Suzuki’s striking workers to vacate the factory premises, efforts are on by the company to highten security at the Manesar plant.

Staring at forced eviction from within the factory boundaries, the workers had first put a resistance refusing to budge. Riding on the high court order, MSIL had sought additional police deployment and have employed labourers to raise the height of the boundary wall along the facility and put up barbed wire fencing at all entrances.

A mini-truck carrying food for the protesting workers was stopped at gate number three of the facility by the Gurgaon police. The striking workers claimed as many as 1,500 policemen were stationed inside the factory premises and they had prevented food from being carried inside.

For the MSIL management negotiations are no more an option “No talks are possible as long as the striking workers are inside the factory premises,” said a company official. Eighteen workers were dismissed on Friday at Suzuki Powertrain India Limited, workers across SPIL and MSIL sounded determined to carry forward with the protest.

Workers said over the last four months they have received a quarter of their salary, due to the sporadic unrest at the facility. Pradeep Kumar, a permanent employee at the Manesar unit, said: “I have received a negative salary for the month of September of Rs 3,880. Even if I work for the whole of this month, then too the amount would get deducted from my monthly wages.”

Workers at the factory complained that they had been “harassed” by the management who had changed their job-profile post their settlement with the company. “I used to work at the weld-shop before. When we resumed work after the settlement, we were given entirely new jobs to handle, of which we had no experience. Now, if we underperform the management would find a reason to punish us,” said Sunil, a worker at MSIL’s Manesar plant.

Mathew Abraham, a former union leader at Maruti Suzuki who is now guiding the workers at Manesar, alleged that during the 2000 strike, the management had used similar ways to break the employee union.

“We are taking legal opinion on the court order. If the workers leave the factory premises they stand the risk of losing their jobs. The company can bring in new employees in their place,” said Abraham.

An estimated 8,000 workers at the three subsidiaries – MSIL’s Manesar plant, Suzuki Powertrain India Limited and Suzuki Motorcycle India Private Limited – have been on strike since October 7 demanding induction of 1,100 contract workers, who they claimed the company had laid off during the 33-day long standoff last month.

The company has, however, termed the reinstatement of workers a “non-issue” as employees were to be taken back follwoing a ramp up of production at the plant. The Haryana Labour Department has declared the strike at Maruti Suzuki Manesar factory as illegal.