MARUTI SUZUKI EMPLOYEES UNION,
16th September, 2011

We, the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU), as representatives of the workers of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, IMT Manesar, send this appeal to all concerned for financial help in the struggle fund, at a juncture when our struggle has entered a crucial phase. All workers in the industrial belt of Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Bawal and from all across the country and beyond have expressed solidarity with us, and our fellow workers in Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd., Suzuki Castings and Suzuki Motorcycle have especially shown concrete solidarity. We have also received solidarity greetings from all sections of society concerned with the struggle of workers.

We reiterate our demands of the right to organise and unionise, to withdraw all charge-sheets against workers, and revoke the termination and suspension of workers since August 29th, and for the just demands of the contract workers. We condemn the adamant attitude of the Maruti Suzuki management who are using their money and muscle power, coercion and intimidation against workers.

As the struggle continues, we appeal to all to help us by contributing to the struggle fund. You can send your contributions directly to:

Account no. 002101566629
IFSC code: ICIC0000021
SHIV KUMAR
ICICI Bank,
Branch- Gurgaon, Sector-14, Haryana, India.

Please inform us by email at: mseu.manesar@gmail.com so that we could confirm that we received your contribution to the struggle fund.

Struggling greetings,

Sonu Kumar (President) Shiv Kumar (General Secretary) & Sumit Kumar (Treasurer)

NOTE: As the tripartite meeting is still going on between the MSEU, labour department and the Maruti management, the rally for today has been postponed. Further action shall be intimated as the situation develops.- Nayan

The struggle in Maruti Suzuki is at a crucial juncture, as around 4500-5000 workers in three of Suzuki’s plants continued their solidarity with the over 3000 workers of MSIL.

This is on the initiative of the plant-level young workers’ spontaneity and solidarity, whose independent but united might, is holding forth.

Yesterday 15th September, the corporate media, singing the company’s tune, splashed across newspapers that “violence erupted as workers attack supervisors.” It even figured out some arbitrary number, and quoted Maruti Suzuki management saying: “the striking workers have polluted the environment in Manesar. Such actions are damaging for the industrial climate in the Gurgaon-Manesar belt. They will destroy jobs and prosperity in the region.” Behind him, the company logo beams “Count on us”.

But yesterday’s confrontation happened while the company was trying to force three buses with some contract workers inside the plant, under police and management muscle protection. Workers sitting at the factoy gate asked the new contract workers to join in the agitation in solidarity and tried to stop the buses. This led to a confrontation when the management and police attacked workers, 4 of whom were injured, and arrested, one of whom had not been let off till late last night.

Meanwhile the workers in Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd. stopped the finished stock truck to get out of the factory.

There is a call for a rally today 16th September from Kamala Nehru Park in Gurgaon by all trade unions. We appeal to all to strengthen it by participating in it in large numbers.

Nayan
on behalf of
Krantikari Naujawan Sabha

14th September 2011

The struggle of the workers of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL, Plot 1, Phase 3A), IMT Manesar united as MARUTI SUZUKI EMPLOYEES UNION (MSEU) is spreading like a prairie fire in the Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Bawal industries belt, finding crucial support among the workers in the area.

In a significant development, today evening, 14th September, around 3-3.30 pm, when the shift-change happened, workers in three more factories of Suzuki in India, with production chain linkage with Maruti Suzuki, have gone on strike. These are workers in the nearby plants of SUZUKI POWERTRAIN INDIA LTD. and SUZUKI CASTINGS (Plot 1, Phase 3A), where the recently formed SUZUKI EMPLOYEES UNION operates, and workers in SUZUKI MOTORCYCLE INDIA PVT. LTD (Kherki Dhaula, Badshahpur, N.H. 8, Gurgaon-Manesar road).

The workers are on a sit-in strike inside these three factories, completely stopping production. Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd., which manufactures diesel engines and transmissions for supplies to MSIL and has an annual production capacity of 3 lakh units, has around 1250 trainee and permanent and over 600 contract workers; Suzuki Castings, a part of Powertrain, has around 375-400 trainee and permanent and 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. All of these around 4500 workers, have gone on strike in solidarity with the struggling workers of Maruti Suzuki in IMT Manesar, and have said that they are determined to continue till the demands of the workers of Maruti Suzuki, organised as MSEU are met.

The workers of Maruti Suzuki, IMT Manesar have been struggling against the conditions of unending days-and-nights of exploitation and repression in the factory, which resulted in the charge-sheet, termination and suspension of 57 workers since Aug 29th. The MSEU is demanding the withdrawal of the charge-sheet, termination and suspension of the 57 workers, their right to organise and unionise and the just demands of the contract workers.

Along with expressing support for the workers of Maruti Suzuki, the workers in the three factories are also vocal about the oppressive conditions in their own factories, and also demand regularisation of the contract workers in their respective factories. The issue of Unionisation and permanent status to contract workers is surfacing as the major issue in the region finding a resonance with the workers struggle in the rest of the country. The significant­ thing about this strike in the three factories is also the plant-level workers spontaneity and unity rather than the top-down approach of the big central trade unions, who are now slowly coming in support. Concrete support from independent, even factory-level trade unions in the area and beyond is thus a significant development.

The Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Bawal is afire with workers struggle as in the wake of the MSEU’s spirited fight. In the nearby auto-parts manufacturing plant of MUNJAL SHOWA, IMT Manesar (Plot No. 26 E & F Sector 3) on 12 September, all of its 1200 contract ‘trainee’ young workers went on strike against its horrible working conditions and arbitrary hire-and-fire policy, where workers were paid a meagre around Rs.4000-4800, even lower than the Haryana minimum wage rate. In the settlement inked last night 13th September, at 12 pm, the management was forced to make 125 workers permanent, and to promise that after completion of 3 years of training, all workers will be made permanent. This is a historic victory of workers in the area who struggle against internal segmentation of labour, and prepare to wage a determined and united struggle against capital.

However, MARUTI SUZUKI is continuing with its adamant stance and spreading misinformation that the production has resumed (while it is not so as the MSEU’s release makes it clear) and that it can go on with recruiting new workers and ‘robots’ if the workers do not sign the ‘good conduct bond’. The biggest automobile manufacturer in India, with a passenger car market of 45%, whose spending on ‘employee cost’ has decreased to a mere 1.9% of its total spending in 2010-11 is increasing contractualisation, even as it builds an empires on the exploited and alienated labour of the workers. It is responding by using ‘bouncers’, state police and administration and corporate media on its payroll, and attacking workers with misinformation, legal (with a willing State in tow) and illegal threats and coercion.

The struggle in the Maruti Suzuki plant in IMT Manesar has found strong support from the strike action in the three factories of Suzuki India today. It is a difficult road ahead still for the workers who are facing the might of the company and state. We as part of the larger solidarity effort and forum in coordination with the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union’s effort, appeal to all concerned to stand in solidarity with the workers’ struggle.

Nayanjyoti
Krantikari Naujawan Sabha
krantikarinaujawansabha@gmail.com

MARUTI SUZUKI EMPLOYEES UNION (MSEU)

As you know, from 29th August when Maruti Suzuki Industries Limited, MSIL, Manesar (Plot 1, Phase 3A) terminated 11 and suspended 38 workers, the production is effectively at a halt in the plant. The company has been splashing rumours across the media that production has resumed through some ITI-trained contract workers and has been quoting figures of 125-150 etc. of the number of cars produced in the plant.

We, Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU), send this communiqué on the situation since August 29th to lay out the real picture. The company has gone on a recruitment drive through contractors in the area, after dismissing its own workers, and has hired some contract workers in a desperate bid to start production. However, these workers do not have the knowledge, honed through years of skilled work, required to run the production. Of these new contract workers, many who have come out of the plant in solidarity with the workers outside, having stayed inside for past four days, tell us that they tried to operationalise the production line, being forced by the management for 1-2 days. But being unsuccessful, they had to push some cars down from the line, instead of the models going through the entire process, including proper inspection.

When earlier all over 3000 workers, permanent and contract, worked stretched to their full capacity, the company somehow used to produce 1000-1200 cars every day. And now, can the 120-odd untrained workers and its handful of engineers and supervisors produce anything? The production was at a total halt in the beginning of last week, and in the last 2-3 days, a meagre 8-10 cars were produced in the plant, which are all faulty models somehow clubbed together, as the company fakes its figures and tries to instil consumer confidence. The Swift model which is produced in this plant has at present 80000 bookings. In this situation the company is unable to run any proper production of cars, and is resorting to churn out faulty models. The company may send these faulty models to the market, so it could also be blamed on us later as it has done till now. At the same time, some few management and staff are also conniving with other companies so that they could dig in their own profits from this, again conveniently blaming the workers.

We want to tell everyone that unlike what the company and the media are painting us as- undisciplined and adamant saboteurs- we have a commitment for our work and value what we produce with our sweat and blood. It is we workers who produce, and not the impersonal company and its robots.

So we appeal to consumers to stop buying Maruti Suzuki cars till we workers sit at the factory gate, as it will entail in your loss, given the manner in which they are being produced. WE also appeal to all concerned to stand in solidarity with our struggle to end termination, suspension and charge-sheet, and to establish our right to unionise.

Shiv Kumar
General Secretary, MSEU