October 15: Maruti Suzuki Employees Union’s Press Release
WE, the workers of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., IMT Manesar organized as Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU) have been on strike since 7th October 2011. Along with us, all the workers of Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd, Suzuki Castings and Suzuki Motorcycle India P. Ltd. have been on strike from the afternoon of 7th Oct. On that day itself, workers from Lumax Auto Technologies Ltd (165, Sector-5), Lumax DK, Satyam Auto Components Limited (26 C, Sector – 3), Endurance Technologies Ltd ( Plot No. 400, Sector 8), Hi-Lex India Pvt Ltd, (Plot No.55 Sector-3), Bajaj Motors and a few more companies had gone on a one day strike. The workers from the four plants of Suzuki group have continued their strike.
From 7th October when we were forced to go on strike, a lot of misinformation campaign has been undertaken by the company blaming us for ‘violence’ on fellow workers and of ‘seizing’ the factory, while the fact was that the management and its contractors have indulged in violence, and employees and company officials have been free to go in and out of the factory.We have been on strike because of our just demands and our struggle for work with dignity.
After the settlement on 30th September post the 33 day long agitation from August 29th, while we have acted in complete good faith, the management began violating the terms of the agreement from the very next day. Going back on its word of treating the workers with respect, it has on the contrary been acting with vengeance. On the workers reporting for duty the day after the strike, the management flatly refused to let the over 1,200 contract workers enter the factory, so as to break our spirit and divide the unity between permanent and contract workers. It shuffled permanent workers from their workstations so that allegations of ‘production sabotage’ and ‘go slow’ could again be put on us and show the workers of having violated the agreement. Such a shuffling of skilled workers, accustomed to and specialized at their specific tasks is far from being conducive to optimal production in the factory. Such a move therefore makes evident that full production targets are not a priority with the management at this point. The already inadequate bus service was also stopped to further harass us.
While ‘violence’ has been blamed on us, it is a fact that contractors on the behest of the management used bouncers who threatened and attacked us recently in front of the factory gate on the morning of 7th Oct, this incident took a more blatant aspect when some goons came and beat us up at the factory gate on the 8th and threatened us for our lives. They even attempted to actualise their threat by coming with guns inside the Suzuki Motorcycle plant on the 9th morning and firing three rounds on our fellow workers there. All legal and illegal means have been used by the management now as in June and then again in August-September to break the legitimate raising of our voices.
Violating the spirit of the agreement by acting with bad faith and vengeance, the over 1200 contract workers have not been allowed entry since the settlement on 30th September. Apart from the 44 suspended, a fresh list of 50 workers to be terminated and suspended has been put up in MSIL after 7th October. 18 workers from Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd have been dismissed yesterday. As of last night after High Court order, we the workers of MSIL are sitting outside the factory gate.
The government earlier gave us empty promises after the company broke the spirit of the settlement by acting in anti-worker bad faith. Ever since we have been on strike due to circumstances created by the management, it has been issuing us show-cause notices instead of acting against the company which is habitually reneging on its promises and violating all labour laws. Our fight is for a just cause but the administration instead sent a show cause notice to Suzuki Powertrain Employees Union which threats the cancellation of registration of this Union.
Since yesterday, the state administration has used intimidation when around 1500 police personnel, now increased to around 2500, have been posted in and around the factory. Yesterday the police arrested MSEU’s body member Sushil, and went to the houses of all the workers who have raised their voices. They entered the factory gate joined by police already occupying the canteen and dismantling our set-up to cook food outside for those inside the factories.
The management yesterday tried to push us into starvation by blocking the entry of food, water supply and locking up the toilets.
Given that it had no problem in arresting our leaders last month on false charges, and knowing the attacks on some of our fellow workers and the brutal lathicharge on the workers of Honda in 2005, and looking at the deployment of police, it has now become evident that the Haryana administration is preparing for taking brutal and violent steps to smash our movement and disperse us from here. Such an assault will not just be on us but the right of all working people.
WE are concerned that the factory runs quality production and we are given our rights. Our struggle is a struggle for our dignity and right to our own Union. We struggle also more importantly for the contract workers among us, whose insecurity and precarious condition of existence is a burning issue before all people of the country today. The struggle in Maruti Suzuki has emerged as the concrete struggle of the around 8000 workers of the four plants of Suzuki group- Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd., Suzuki Castings, Suzuki Motorcycle India Ltd and we have also received support from workers of many other factories all who face similar situation today.
We reiterate our demands:
1. Unconditionally take back on duty all the terminated and suspended workers- permanent, trainee and contract.
2. Immediately revoke all the pending and ongoing charge-sheet imposed on the workers as they are false and only a means to harass us.
3. Recognize our right to form our own Union. The situation that had arisen on 3rd June 2011 due to the management’s refusal to recognise our Union should be resolved.
4. Immediately stop all repressive measures, and stop police action on workers, release our Union members arrested on the morning of 14th October and stop further arrests and detentions. Punish the perpetrators of the case of firing on 9th October morning.
5. Stop management’s ploy to blame ‘industrial sabotage’ and ‘indiscipline’ on us, by various harassment techniques, including changing workstations.
6. Resume the already inadequate bus service.
7. The termination of 18 workers of Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd must be revoked immediately. All the demands of the workers’ Unions of Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd, Suzuki Castings and Suzuki Motorcycle India Ltd. must be met, and the termination and suspension should be withdrawn unconditionally in these plants, and the respective managements’ vindictive attitude should stop immediately.
Shiv Kumar
General Secretary
Maruti Suzuki Employees Union
Strike in Maruti Suzuki and seven other factories in Manesar: The Struggle Continues
The struggle of the workers in Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, IMT Manesar refuses to die. Just when it was quietening under settlement truce, it stood up again, gathering political edge and crucial concrete support among workers in the area. In a significant development today, the 7th of October 2011, the workers in seven nearby factories along with workers of MARUTI SUZUKI INDIA LTD, IMT MANESAR have gone on strike. These are workers in the nearby plants of SUZUKI POWERTRAIN INDIA LTD. and SUZUKI CASTINGS (Plot 1, Phase 3A), and SUZUKI MOTORCYCLE INDIA PVT. LTD (in the Gurgaon-Manesar road), along with the workers of LUMAX AUTO TECHNOLOGIES LTD (165, Sector-5), SATYAM AUTO COMPONENTS LIMITED (26 C, Sector – 3), ENDURANCE TECHNOLOGIES LTD ( Plot no. 400, Sector 8), HI-LEX INDIA PVT LTD, (Plot No.55 Sector-3) completely halting production.
More than 10000 workers in these factories have stood in solidarity with the struggling comrades in Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL), cautioning the management against its refusal to refrain from unfair labour practices and vindictive attitude, even after the recent settlement on September 30. They ask the management to stop targeting contract workers in MSIL.
Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd., which manufactures diesel engines and transmissions for MSIL and has an annual production capacity of 3 lakh units, has around 1250 trainee and permanent workers, along with over 600 contract workers; Suzuki Castings, a part of Powertrain, has around 375-400 trainee and permanent workers, with over 500 contract workers, while Suzuki Motorcycle India Pvt. Ltd., has around 1200-1400 workers who relentlessly produce around 1,200 motorcycles and scooters a day. These around 4500 workers along with over 5000 workers in the nearby plants of Lumax Auto Tech Ltd, Satyam Auto Components Ltd, Endurance Technologies Ltd and Hi-Lex India (P) Ltd., have joined forces with around 1000 permanent workers sitting in and 1200-1300 workers demonstrating outside the gate of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.
The build-up to this strike has of course been the long struggle of MSIL workers, organised under Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU) on the right to organize and unionise. They have resisted the vindictive attack by the management and its relentless efforts to divide them. Throughout the conflict, the state administration, police and even the media have shown their anti-worker character. The struggle which began this time on August 29th after the attack by the management – terminating and suspending 62 workers, came to a settlement on 30th September 2011. A crucial aspect of the settlement was that the permanent workers union fought for and secured the rights of the 18 terminated trainees who otherwise had insecure nature of jobs. This only confirms the solid unity among permanent, contract and casual workers that has been the hallmark of MSIL workers’ struggles.
Under the settlement, the management was to refrain from acting against the workers in ‘bad faith or with vengeance’, but this unity of the workers during the struggle and after the settlement was not acceptable to it. The management is hell bent on breaking the spirit of solidarity and struggle among the workforce. After partial production resumed this Monday, October 3, the management was more interested in furthering its agenda of attack on workers’ unity through various means rather than resuming production. A reshuffling on the assembly line was done to this effect, with workers who have worked for four years on a line, were shifted to some other area on the shop floor. More importantly, around 1000-1200 contract workers were not allowed to enter the factory premises and were turned back from the gate when they reported for duty on Monday. This was done, as is the management’s ploy in the area, to pit the contract workers against the permanent workforce and to break their spirit of unity and struggle.
When the leadership of Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU) met the DC, Labour Commissioner and other state authorities against this unfair labour practice of the management of MSIL, and against the spirit of the settlement of 30th September this week, they got empty assurances, and dismissive attitude. The management is however adamant that its project of teaching workers a lesson is not over and refuses to budge from its position. It in fact, used a contractor, Rakesh, who brought in 10-15 ‘bouncers’ to threaten and physically assault the workers when they gathered outside the gate today, to provoke the workers so that the police could be brought in again.
These conditions of a completely anti-worker attitude of the management of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, its relentless vengeful attack on the solidarity of workers, its refusal of work to contract workers even after the settlement, its use of legal and illegal measures to crush the spirit of struggle of workers must stop immediately, and we appeal to all concerned to stand in solidarity with this continuing struggle of workers.
MSEU: On the settlement between Maruti Suzuki management and workers representatives
MARUTI SUZUKI EMPLOYEES UNION (MSEU)
release: 2nd October
After a long struggle since August 29th and many rounds of negotiations, a settlement has been inked between the management of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., IMT Manesar, and the workers representatives on 30th September 2011. The important thing in the settlement is that of the 62 workers, the 18 trainee workers have been taken back on duty. Of the 44 permanent workers, the termination has been revoked for the 15 workers, and now all 44 are on suspension with a legal process of enquiry that will take it course. We on our part reiterate that the pending charge-sheet are false and shall be defeated. The settlement binds us to a salary deduction for the period of struggle with a no-work no-pay rule. However the most important thing in the entire phase of standoff is the strength of the workers as a united force, which still stands unfazed and we shall come back in struggle and on duty.
With this settlement, the management-worker disagreement ends for the interim. We shall carry forth our part of the duty of production, and also ask the management to keep its promise, as set in the settlement, that it shall not take any action on the workers with bad faith or with vengeance. We thank all the central and independent trade unions, the workers in the Gurgaon-Dharuhera-Manesar-Bawal belt, and from across the country and beyond, as well as individuals concerned with our struggle, who have stood by us and lend us support in various ways. It is this strength and our unity that stands unwavering with us which is the inspiration we hold on for the time to come.
Maruti Suzuki Employees Union
President: Sonu Kumar
General Secretary: Shiv Kumar
Maruti-Suzuki: The Realpolitik of Managerial Intransigence
Ankit Mandal
Can the Maruti management’s stubbornness be explained only by its unwillingness to allow workers to have their union? This seems doubtful. Unions in India in themselves do not pose such a grave threat for managements. There must be something more to it.
Rather, it reflects a bourgeois resoluteness to bring the long pending demand for institutionalisation of the changes in the labour regime to the centre-stage of policymaking. Changes in the labour regime – casualisation and contractualisation that neoliberalism intensified have not yet been codified completely, which frequently puts managements in legal predicaments, allowing unions to pose ‘legitimate’ demands. A recent Supreme Court judgement which ordered regularisation of contract labourers employed in airports demonstrates the lag between the industrial reality and the legal framework.
In the past decade, the agenda of labour reforms could not be pushed ahead partly because of political compulsions (UPA I was supported by the left parties) and partly due to economic conundrum (the global crisis) in which the UPA regimes found themselves in.
The Maruti management’s determination is not coming from its own competitive need; rather it is representing the general will of the bourgeoisie in India. Not anyone could have acted in this manner. The central role of the automobile sector in the present phase of capitalist development and Maruti’s overwhelming leadership in this particular sector puts it at the helm of the bourgeois class.
At least, it is hard to deny that this sector has been in the forefront of demanding labour reforms. The recent statements from the Automobile Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMAI) and the Society of Indian Automobiles Manufacturers (SIAM) testify this. These associations have been emphasising that labour reforms are crucial for the growth in the automotive industry.
Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) Ex-President Pawan Goenka : “Labour reforms is high on agenda of SIAM for quite some years. We don’t have any policy on laying-off during slowdown. …We have made several presentations to the Ministry of Heavy Industries, but no serious discussion has happened yet on what could be done… One thing is certain that something has to happen. Otherwise, it will have serious impact on the sector.”
“The rigidity in labour laws has led companies to increasingly resort to outsourcing and contracting of labour. To be very precise, the need of the hour is flexible labour reforms,” General Motors India vice president P Balendran had said.
SIAM Director General Vishnu Mathur said the law should give “flexibility” on taking disciplinary actions even against a single person.
The Haryana government is clearly backing the Maruti management and is not at all showing any sympathy to the workers. Haryana Labour Minister Shiv Charan Lal Sharma says, “How can it be possible for the management to take back workers against whom an FIR has been lodged and (criminal) cases have been filed”. Haryana Labour Commissioner Satwanti Ahlawat says, “During the talks, it came to notice that there is a clear intention of few persons, backed by some political support, who want to mislead workers,”.
However, even if tomorrow the Maruti management agrees to workers’ demands in toto (which is doubtful), it has achieved what it had to – it has already succeeded in bringing the state in for labour reforms. The central government has (Sep 21) agreed to set up a National Automotive Board as a nodal agency for the issues relating to this industry within 2-3 months, and that “Labour laws or in fact any law is not sacrosanct or permanent. Labour laws will have to change with time. If the industry feels so, the Labour Ministry will look into it.”
Stop all your shameless anti-labor activities: Japanese Unions tell Suzuki
Mr. SUZUKI Osamu,
Chairman and President of Suzuki Motor Corporation
On behalf of National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba (Doro-Chiba) and National Coordinating Center of Labor Unions (NCCLU), we send you a letter of protest and request.
First of all, we demand you stop immediately all outrageous and anti-labor actions, such as dismissal, job suspension, lock-out and others, which Maruti Suzuki, your subsidiary, is practicing under your direction against numerous workers whom you employed.
We are informed that your company has made “a remarkable development” as to hold a half of the car market shares in India. Further it is recently reported that you are now planning to construct a new factory to increase your domination over car production and market.
We’d like to ask you who do you think have contributed to all of your recent achievement. Was it possible for you without those workers who have devoted their toil and sweat to the car production even under low wage, long working hours, scarce time to rest and only few holidays?
It is universally established and recognized right for workers to organize their own labor union. Serious and enthusiastic international attention and solidarity of working class is now focused upon Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU) workers who have risen up for an independent labor union to bring a change to the worst working condition at the forefront of 2 million workers of Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt.
You must know that workers of the whole world including Japanese workers of course are terribly furious at the outrageous repression of your company on the workers of MSEU, shameless revenge on workers’ protest: numerous dismissals, job suspension, lock-out since the end of August, forceful demand of signing a “good conduct bond” (an attempt of depriving workers of all right of resistance) and replacement of those dissident workers who refused to sign with scabs, or strike breakers, etc.
We strongly urge you to stop all these shameless anti-labor activities and to accept the following demands of MSEU workers:
1) Put an end to lock-out immediately and stop to force workers to sign a “good conduct bond”!
2) Reinstate all dismissed workers and punished workers!
3) Drop all accusation against MSEU workers!
4) Recognize labor rights of irregularly-employed workers and make them all regular employment!
5) Recognize the right of workers to organize themselves in labor union!
6) We heatedly condemn the outrageous arrestment carried out against President, General Secretary and another worker on Sep. 18.
Set these arrested union leaders at liberty, immediately!
Your written answer to these demand are expected to be sent to the following address:
“Doro-Chiba:
DC Kaikan Bldg. 3F, 2-8 Kaname-cho Chuou-ku, Chiba city, Chiba prefecture 260-0017, Japan”
September 22, 2011
National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba
National Coordinating Center of Labor Unions
Maruti Workers’ Movement: Resisting Exploitation And Defending Democracy
CPIML Liberation
The workers’ struggle at the Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant has, once again, exposed the ugly and exploitative underbelly of liberalised ‘growth’. The intrepid struggle of young workers there is a glaring reminder that in the celebrated industrial enclaves of the national capital region, profit margins are extracted by abuse of contract labour laws, relentlessly exploitative work conditions – and above all by the brute suppression of the basic democratic right to organise and unionise. It is bringing home the fact that the Government of Haryana is treating the workers’ legally mandated right to unionise as disruptive; while it is condoning and even defending the flagrantly illegal lockout by the management!
Since the Maruti workers’ strike was defeated in 2000, the management had allowed only a pocket union to function. In the past few years, the automobile industry has chosen to cope with recession by imposing even more exploitative work conditions and even more restricted democracy. This may be the reason why many recent instances of workers’ resistance and severe repression have been witnessed in the automobile sector – at Honda in 2005, at Pricol in 2009, at Rico in 2009 followed by the workers’ strike in Gurgaon, and at Maruti in 2011.
A majority of the Maruti workers are contract workers, most of them skilled – who are paid less than half the salary for the same work, and denied various benefits. This pattern of cutting costs by employing contract labour (in violation of the labour laws) has increasingly become the norm, not only in the private sector but even in the public sector. At the Maruti Manesar struggle, a remarkable feature is the unity between the permanent and contract workers.
Some months back, the workers at Maruti’s Manesar plant had formed an independent union of their own – the MSEU (Maruti Suzuki Employees Union) – to voice their grievances over the severely exploitative work conditions. When the management dismissed and suspended the MSEU leaders in June 2011, the workers went on a strike that lasted 13 days. The strike ended with an understanding that the Haryana Government and Maruti management would recognise the MSEU, take back the dismissed workers, and refrain from further victimisation. Instead, in late August, the MSEU’s application for registration was turned down on technical grounds. On the heels of this rejection, the management swung into action. Workers were told that they could enter the factory premises only if they signed a ‘good conduct bond’ – thereby signing away their right to protest in any form. Scores of workers – all active in the formation of the union – were suspended and dismissed.
Workers refused to sign the ‘good conduct bond’ and began a dharna. Ever since, the gates of the factory have been encircled by hundreds of policemen behind a barricade. The bond itself is absolutely illegal, and the management’s action amounts to an illegal lockout. Yet, the Haryana Government has, throughout, sided with the management against the workers. During negotiations, three top MSEU office bearers were arrested after they refused to relent till all dismissed/suspended workers were taken back. Haryana Labour Minister Shiv Charan Lal Sharma defended the arrest, accusing workers of being ‘adamant’ in their demand that all dismissed and suspended workers be reinstated. The Haryana Labour Commissioner has actually made the indefensible claim that the ‘Good Conduct Bond’ is legal, while echoing the MSI management’s allegation that the MSEU and the workers’ struggle is the handiwork of ‘outside’ elements. Meanwhile, workers in other Maruti factories in the region, as well as workers in the entire Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt have shown great solidarity with the Maruti workers’ struggle.
The young, skilled workers who are at the frontline of the sustained agitation at the Maruti plant are the emerging face of a new chapter of the working class movement in India. Many of them have strong roots in rural Haryana and western UP. Their struggle is a challenge to the two foremost (and illegal) offensives on workers’ rights by liberalisation and corporate capital – contractualisation of labour and denial of the right to unionise.
The Maruti workers’ movement is not just a trade union struggle. Their struggle for the right to organise, unionise and protest against exploitative conditions is a crucial, and welcome, aspect of the struggle to defend democracy in India today.
MSEU: Condemn the arrest of MSEU leaders
Maruti Suzuki Employees Union
18th September
We write this at a time when our movement is under attack from all quarters, and three of our leaders, namely, Sonu Kumar (the President of MSEU), Shiv Kumar (the General Secretary of MSEU) and Ravinder, have been arrested by the police in a completely unjustified and unlawful manner.
All concerned probably know the way in which processes unfolded over the past few weeks. Our leaders went to the negotiation table with the management of Maruti Suzuki and the Labour Department on the 16th of September. Talks were still going on today, when they broke down because the management stubbornly refused to take back those workers that had been thrown out.
We believe that the management, prepared for this eventuality, had already made suitable arrangements with the police and the administration. That the government and its police have been bought over by the company management is absolutely clear. When talks broke down at about 10:15 pm today, the police spared no time in arresting our leaders. The attempt, clearly, is to cripple our movement when we have refused to back down in the face of all threats and enticements.
It is known to us that Ravinder already has an FIR filed against his name; but Sonu Kumar and Shiv Kumar have never been charged before. However, looking at the foul play that the police are already indulging in, we are sure that our leaders will be charged of crimes they never committed.
This way or that, we will continue our struggle. We appeal to all to condemn such acts by this unholy alliance of the police, the government and the company management. We ask you to stand in our support, in the support of our movement, of our arrested leaders and against injustice.
Rishipal
Executive Member
Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU)
ITI-Polytechnic students extend their support to Maruti Workers
Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS)
All India Revolutionary Youth Organization, Haryana State Committee.
ITI-Polytechnic Students’ Committee,
Munshi Premchand Library, Dharodi, Distt. Jind, Haryana.
Ph. :07206621090
Comrade Sonu Gurjar,
Red Salute,
We, the students of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Polytechnic institutes of Haryana, heartily congratulate you for the struggle you have waged against the oppressive, unjust and adamant Maruti Management and extend revolutionary greetings to your struggle. We have been following the struggle you have waged through strike and other means for the legitimate demands for the last four months, are in constant touch with it and getting inspiration from it. We are well aware that we will be joining the factories in one or two years and we will be facing the same oppressive conditions that you are fighting against, whether it is a question of low wages, long working hours, unequal pay for the same work, or the question forming the union. Thus if your struggle attains victory, it will be a victory not only for you but it would a victory for the future of many of the students who are studying in ITI and Polytechnic. We are also aware that the Maruti Management is trying all legitimate-illegitimate means to weaken your struggle. They are enrolling new recruits to continue with the production on the one hand and weaken your struggle on the other.
We assure you that until the Maruti Management agrees to concede on your demands and our struggle is victorious, none of the student will apply for job in Maruti industry and will not allow Maruti Management to hold campus placements in ITI and Polytechnic institutes. If we go and work in Maruti now it will not only be your defeat but our own defeat and it will be a setback to our future.
We, the students of ITI-Polytechnic, once again extend our full support to your struggle and hope that the victory will be ours.
Inquilab Zindabad.
Bahadur,
For Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS),
ITI-Polytechnic Students’ Committee.
Radical Notes 