Exit strategy

Offering severance packages to labour leaders to get rid of them is not an idea unique to Maruti Suzuki India Limited. It is, in fact, something of a time-honoured practice in the industrial belt of Gurgaon-Manesar, say labour activists. In the last couple of years there have been at least three instances of month-long strikes ending with union leaders exiting the company after taking a “full and final settlement”. Interestingly, in 2000, Maruti followed a similar strategy at its Gurgaon plant, though that was called a “voluntary retirement scheme”. Since then, the Gurgaon plant has had no strikes.