Motown crisis: Contract workers bear the brunt of slowdown in auto sector

The second of a three-part series on auto sector crisis talks of how some allege that layoffs are to put pressure on the Centre to reduce GST

Benny and his friend C Prasanna were working as trainees in a two-wheeler factory at Oragadam, an auto hub near Chennai. They were part of nearly 700 contract workers at the factory who were recently laid off. S Siva, a worker at a foundry in Coimbatore, lost his job, too. He now works as a driver and earns half his previous salary. 

Benny, Prasanna and Siva are among 80,000-100,000 who have lost their jobs in Tamil Nadu owing to the slowdown in the auto sector. However, many stakeholders in the sector allege that while demand has certainly declined, some OEMs