I have gone through several leading news papers
barring "The Hindu" almost every section of the Indian print and
Media news companies portrayed the Maruti workers at Manesar plant as Villains.
One must strongly condemn the killing of the HR manager at the Maruti, Manesar
plant but on the same we also must think what led to this worker unrest at the
Maruti plant? The general public should look in to the past in this issue
because last year this same Maruti workers have led a peaceful protest for several months demanding for their right to establish worker's Union. At
that time their struggle went off peacefully despite violent repression by the
Maruti management. Indians follow outdated labor laws after the opening up of
the Indian market even these outdated labour laws were not implemented now a
day. Maruti is the leader in car manufacturing and it is the market leader
despite earning huge amount of profit, the management of Maruti continue to
exploit its workers. Indian democracy is at the hands of capitalists and
its policies are largely influenced by the corporate houses. If such is the
situation such labor unrest are bound to happen. A responsible government would
look in to this issue seriously and draft its plan accordingly but since the
Indian government is at the hands of capitalists a meaningful solution to this
problem will be a question mark??????????
IMPORTANT NOTE:
India third 'snoopiest' country: Google Transparency Report.
The GOI have requested Google to censor the internet contents/opinions
of many users who speak against the Indian government. Even
dictatorship countries haven't placed such a number of censor requests
to the Google.
So it’s clear that the government of India is keeping
an eye on its internet users and with the help of Google, GOI have
acquired the privacy details of the internet users to intimidate them.
The important fact is that the Indian government seeks censorship to
political views, hate speech, Government Criticism etc. It is clear we
the Indians don’t have freedom of speech when it comes to criticizing
government in key issues.
DISCLOSURE:
Hence I hereby declare that the above article is my personal opinion and it is not being copied from any other
Internet/anti-India websites.
With this View I post here a well balanced article published @ Economic political weekly. The Hindu also have come up with some excellent articles on the problems
faced by workers in the manufacturing sectors and also with detailed
report on Manesar worker unrest. Here are the links to those articles.
'Manesar Workers are the Villains': Truth or
Prejudice?
Rakhi Sehgal
The
events of 18 July in the Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki which ended with the
murder of a manager were not a sudden conflagration. Anger at the plant had
been building up for months over the management’s refusal to recognise an
elected union; workers were increasingly frustrated over their inability to
exercise their constitutional rights and the demand of equal pay for equal work
was falling on deaf years. Rather than portray the workers as villains,
managements in this industrial belt of Haryana have to ask themselves why they
have not been able to develop a democratic industrial relations framework that
can address the concerns of workers.
Rakhi
Sehgal (rakhi.sehgal@gmail.com)
is vice president of the Hero Honda Theka Mazdoor Sangathan, which is
affiliated to the New Trade Union Initiative.
On
Tuesday, 23 July, a Maruti Suzuki worker, VK from Sonepat said that though he
had done nothing on 18 July – the day the Manesar plant witnessed large-scale
violence ending in the death of an executive of the company – he was coming to
surrender to the Gurgaon police because the police were threatening his family
with arrest of his father if they could not find VK. He says he was working in
the B-shift in the Manesar plant in the paint shop when violence broke out on
18 July but his first name matched the name of one of the 51 workers listed in
the first information report (FIR) filed by Deepak Anand, general manager at
Maruti Suzuki. Some of us tried to meet him and talk to him before he presented
himself to the police, but he was picked up by the Gurgaon police and his family
was told he would be taken to the Manesar police station where the FIR was
registered. However, until the time of writing (24 July), VK could not be
traced either at the Gurgaon police station of Sector 17-C which picked him up
or at the Manesar police station where he was to be presented since the FIR was
lodged at this station.
According
to an unconfirmed report, Haryana police has detained the uncle of RV, an
executive committee member of the Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union (MSWU), because
they are unable to locate RV himself. Another worker is afraid to seek medical
help for fear of arrest and torture by the police. He is a B-shift worker who
injured himself while fleeing the factory premises on the evening of 18 July
and is afraid to meet or talk to anyone or seek medical help.
Workers’
colonies near the Manesar plant are deserted. Police swept through the area and
went up to Jhajjar and Rohtak on the night of 18 July to pick up any worker
wearing a Maruti Suzuki uniform or carrying a company identity card.[1]
The Haryana police, administration and the Maruti Suzuki management have
managed to terrorise Maruti Suzuki workers into silence and forced them
underground. This strategy has worked well for Maruti Suzuki management as it
has had all the freedom to present only its version of what is purported to
have transpired on the evening of 18 July.
A
handful of workers we managed to speak to were unanimous in the view that the
death of the Maruti Suzuki executive Awanish Kumar Dev “should not have
happened”. According to a worker, Awanish Dev had agreed to take back Jiya Lal,
the suspended worker, who had protested caste abuse by a supervisor during
A-shift on 18 July, but then Awanish Dev got a call from a senior, instructing
him otherwise. Naresh Narwal, additional labour commissioner, and Gurgaon
district administration officials told a joint trade union delegation that they
too had received word that Maruti Suzuki management had agreed to take back the
suspended worker the next day on 19 July and that the matter was almost
resolved. Some B-shift workers we spoke to, report hearing the same.
What
happened in the matter of a couple minutes that changed the course of events
that evening? Was it the phone call from a senior manager, reversing the
understanding and agreement with the union? Were the union leaders who
protested the alleged reversal of the decision threatened inside that negotiating
room? Did union members rush into the negotiating room to protect their leaders
who they feared were being threatened or attacked? Or was it the case that some
people dressed in workers uniforms carrying “weapons” entered the room and
started thrashing managers, exhorting workers who were milling outside the room
to follow their lead, and these instigators refused to listen to union leaders
who pleaded with them to stop and drop their weapons? Was the fire deliberately
started or was it an accident, a short-circuit? Was Awanish Kumar Dev’s death
an accident or a brutal murder?
Perhaps
We Will Never Know
Perhaps
by the time workers and union leaders who were present in that negotiating room
are able to present their story (if at all they are able to do so), no one
would be willing to listen, because Maruti Suzuki management would have drowned
out all reasonable voices and the relentless baying for the blood of workers
would have reached such a crescendo that the guilt of all workers would
be a foregone conclusion and no one would want to hear otherwise.
Build-up
on 18 July
What
we do know is that on 18 July the workers and their union were protesting the
unilateral decision of Maruti Suzuki management to suspend Jiya Lal. The
previous day, workers of both shifts had decided to skip their pre-shift
meeting with supervisors to protest against management intransigence vis-à-vis
their union in negotiations on the charter of demands submitted by MSWU. On 18
July morning, the supervisor, Ramkishore Majhi, stopped some workers, including
Jiya Lal, when they were returning from their tea break and instructed them to
stop boycotting the pre-shift meeting. In the exchange of heated words between
the supervisor and group of workers, Ramkishore Majhi, reportedly hurled a caste
abuse at Jiya Lal, who protested along with others in the group. Thereafter,
Majhi reported this incident to his senior managers and Jiya Lal reported it to
his union leaders. Without giving Jiya Lal an opportunity to present his
version of the incident, or discussing the matter with the union leaders, or
showing any intent to resolve the dispute, the Maruti Suzuki management took
the unilateral decision of suspending Jiya Lal with immediate effect.
Union
leaders and workers protested this high-handedness and called upon the Maruti
Suzuki management to either discipline both Ramkishore Majhi and Jiya Lal, or
revoke Jiya Lal’s suspension and talk to the union and both parties before
taking any action. Disciplinary action against just the worker and not the
supervisor when the supervisor was equally, if not more at fault, was not
acceptable to the workers. Maruti Suzuki management refused and the situation
escalated with every passing hour. Workers were angry with what they perceived
to be yet another instance of a worker being punished in a jiffy without
establishing his guilt and without talking to their democratically elected
union, while supervisors and managers are presumed innocent and protected even
when they are at fault. B-shift workers continued production while A-shift
workers decided to stay back in the plant at the end of their shift until the
dispute was satisfactorily resolved.
Workers
had not reacted like that earlier in the month when Ram Mehar, president of the
union had been suspended and then taken back a day later. Workers already had
an enviable history of conducting a long non-violent struggle during the summer
months of 2011. So what was different on 18 July? Had they had enough of
management high-handedness and arrogance and decided that they must stand up
against it? Were their actions fuelled by another alleged incident earlier in
the week when supervisors and workers seem to have had a heated exchange and a
supervisor allegedly told the workers they could do what they wanted, their
story was going to end in the next two to three days (kar lo jo karna hai,
agle do-deen din mein tum logon ka yahan se safaya ho jayega)?
Fighting
for Recognition
What
is clear is that workers and the union leaders had been increasingly frustrated
by Maruti Suzuki management’s disrespect towards their elected union, to
establish which they had sacrificed much and had also adhered to all
pre-conditions laid down by the management so that it would “allow” the Haryana
Labour Department to register the union!
Chairman
of Maruti Suzuki India R C Bhargava claimed on 20 July in a press conference
that it was the Government of Haryana which had reservations about the
registration of a union and not the management. Does this claim have any
credence in light of the fact that last year Maruti Suzuki withstood a
five-month long agitation, massive production losses, loss of market share and
gave a huge payout to the union leaders to abandon their struggle for the
registration of their union? If Maruti Suzuki did not have reservations about
the registration of a union, then how do we interpret Managing Executive
Officer (Administration) S Y Siddiqui’s statement in June 2011 that Maruti
Suzuki will neither permit the formation of a union nor “tolerate any external
affiliation of the union”.
It
has been repeatedly made clear to the workers that they were up against the
collective might of a huge corporate like Maruti Suzuki with its clout,
influence and money power, and a collusive labour department of the state
government who were determined to thwart the exercise of the workers’
constitutional right to freedom of association.
Unfortunately,
the formation and registration of a union does not automatically lead to its
recognition by managements, many of which refuse to negotiate in good faith, if
at all, with registered unions – a cause of much frustration among workers.
Workers
of Maruti Suzuki were also pressurising their union not to give in to
management demands to form a grievance committee and welfare committee, as
agreed to by the previous union (the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union) in the
October 2011 settlement. Workers feared that the management would use these
committees to build a parallel system of governance and subvert the functioning
of their democratically elected union and deny it legitimacy and recognition.
Workers did not believe that the labour department of the state government
could have issued challans to managers (for non-compliance with terms of
the tripartite settlement of October 2011) independently, without the implicit
“permission” of Maruti Suzuki management and they saw it as a pressure tactic
to force the MSWU’s hand.
Managers
and labour officers, who regularly visited the shop floor in Manesar, were
fully aware of the mounting concerns, anger and frustration of the workers and
yet did nothing to address and defuse the situation. Instead the Maruti Suzuki
management escalated tensions by trying to intimidate the union leaders to
agree to its terms – no collective bargaining and no serious discussion on the
charter of demands until the union agreed to form the grievance and welfare
committees! It refused to yield to the union’s conciliatory gesture that the
formation of these committees could be a part of the negotiations and not a
precondition. Maruti Suzuki management went so far as to lodge false cases
against key union leaders at the Manesar police station last month when talks
broke down on this issue. Union leaders were repeatedly harassed by the SHO of
Manesar police station but they refused to yield to the threats and
intimidation.
And
yet R C Bhargava claims in the press conference that there were no issues
between management and workers and “no one saw this coming”! If that is the
case then the entire management team of Maruti Suzuki should be sacked and more
competent managers should be hired.
Resisting
Violations
The
workers and the union leaders were also united in their demand – that the
long-term settlement that was under negotiation should be implemented for all
casual and contract workers employed at the Manesar plant, who worked alongside
them on the shop floor. The management was adamant that it would not agree to
do so. It used the same argument proffered time and again in this industrial
belt by managements and labour department – that permanent workers do not have
the legal right to espouse the cause of casual and contract workers! And that
casual and contract workers do not have the legal right to raise an industrial
dispute with the principal employer! That these so-called casual and contract
workers are working in core production processes in violation of the Contract
Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970 is known to all and yet no
company has been prosecuted for this violation in Haryana. And the Haryana
government does not deem it necessary to comply with its statutory duty of
constituting a State Contract Labour Advisory Board before which complaints can
be raised, investigated and redressed. Maruti Suzuki management’s recent
announcement, that by 2013 it will ensure no contract worker is employed in its
core production processes, is an admission that this is the existing practice.
Will the Haryana Government prosecute Maruti Suzuki (and all other companies)
for violating the Contract Labour Act over several years?
The
determination of the permanent workers of Maruti Suzuki to redress the
injustice being meted out to their fellow workers in the name of business
exigency and need for flexibility is evident from their stand taken during
negotiations as reported by them. The MSWU offered to give up one year’s worth
of arrears and economic benefits if the Maruti Suzuki management ensured
implementation of the long-term agreement (LTA) on all casual and contract
workers employed at the Manesar plant. The union had submitted that the LTA be
made applicable from April 2011 and the management had countered that the
Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU) LTA was under implementation for the period
2009-11 and applied to the Manesar plant permanent workers as well. Therefore
the MSWU settlement, when finalised, could not be implemented retrospectively
from 2011. The MSWU countered that if the MUKU settlement was applicable to
them from 2009 onwards when many of them were casual workers and trainees, then
by the same logic, the MSWU settlement could be implemented for existing
trainees, casual and contract workers. If the management agreed to do so, they
would drop their demand for implementation of the settlement from April 2011
onwards, agree to its implementation from April 2012, and give up one year’s
worth of economic benefits.
Failing
Industrial Relations Systems
There
is a danger that the events of 18 July will impede a thorough examination of
the reasons for the simmering discontentment among workers of Maruti Suzuki
(and it would not be stretching it to say of all workers in the industrial belt
of Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Rewari).
We
must recognise and find the collective will to address issues at the centre of
the ongoing dispute between workers and management of Maruti Suzuki – the right
to form a union (along with the right to affiliate with any central trade union
if they choose to) and the right to equal wages and benefits for equal work and
an end to discriminatory wage systems and wage theft. These workers have shown
the courage to stand up to a powerful corporation and the might of the State.
They are not willing to give up their right to form an autonomous union that
the management cannot control or dictate to and they are unwilling to
sell out their casual and contract workers by accepting a settlement that does
not apply equally to all workers doing the same work. This is the biggest
threat to the extant production system. And management wonders why the backlash
is so severe.
There
are many voices commenting on the lack of maturity among these workers, the
expression of their demands and their discontentment, their youth, their lack
of experience as many are first-generation industrial workers, their supposed
hotheadeness and impatience, their aspiration to be upwardly mobile and to have
the capacity to indulge in consumerism, and their demands for better wages (why
not?). Getting caught up with these issues would be akin to missing the wood
for the trees in the immediate circumstances. And yet with an eye towards the
long term, one could ask of the Maruti Suzuki management and industrial
relations and human resource management experts – if this is the profile of
educated workers recruited from ITIs, working in some of the most sophisticated
production processes in our country – then why have managements and experts not
been able to evolve an appropriate and democratic industrial relations
framework and a human resource management system that can address the concerns
and aspirations of these workers?
To
ignore the problems arising from a defunct industrial relations system and
claim as S Y Siddiqui did that “the problem at Manesar, is not one of
industrial relations. It is an issue of ‘crime and militancy’” is a gross
dereliction on one’s responsibilities and blatant criminalisation of labour.
Trade
unions must also introspect on how they are failing the new generation of
workers and new formations of labour. We need to collectively reflect on the
New Trade Union Initiative’s assessment of last October that “trade union
movements have shown a lack of shared understanding and effective strategy to
make the workers’ struggle at Maruti Suzuki a decisive trade union battle to
change the orientation of the labour policies of companies and government. In
order to move forward and build support for the Maruti Suzuki workers the trade
union movement needs to build coordination in both the
Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera belt and at the national level.”
The
Maruti Suzuki management, the labour department of the state, the Gurgaon
district administration and the Haryana government must introspect and take
responsibility for turning a blind eye to the neon flashing signs and failing
to act to defuse or contain the situation before it spiralled so horribly out
of control and resulted in the tragic death of Awanish Kumar Dev.
Equally
tragic was the brutal murder on 18 October 2009 of 26-year-old Ajit Yadav, a
worker at Rico Auto Industries, Gurgaon who was allegedly tossed into the
company’s furnace by company officials and company-hired goons during a
struggle by the workers to form a union to demand a wage hike and redress of
onerous working conditions. Three years later the family of Ajit Yadav and
workers of the Gurgaon industrial belt are still awaiting justice!
[1] On
that evening, two buses taking workers of Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India.
(HMSI) back home from Manesar after their shift ended were detained all
night even though both the buses had been checked thoroughly twice already
by Haryana police and no Maruti Suzuki workers were found in the buses.
Calls by the HMSI Employees Union on behalf of their members trapped all night
in the buses, fell on deaf ears. The buses were allowed to proceed to their
destination only at 8 am the next morning
