The horrific incident involving mass scale violence at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar manufacturing facility which unfortunately also took life of a senior management official might be becoming slightly oblivious to people now in the face of the festival season. Maruti Suzuki also seems to be back on the normal track with the suspended production of the Maruti Swift and the Dzire back in full swing and also the recent launch of the Alto 800 which has seen a lot of demand from the consumers. Currently, the company is producing 1600 cars per day at its Manesar facility while it is expected to attain the maximum production of 1,800 cars per day by the middle of November.
However, fresh reports from the Manesar plant suggest a different story. Protests and agitation seems to be lurking around the Manesar plant yet again. After the violent July incident at the plant, the company had replaced a large fraction of its original work force. Also the company had increased the level of automation to reduce its dependency on workers and avoid such protests in the future. Now, the current workers the plant are planning on going for a hunger strike and other protests, though calm to pressurize the management to recall 548 employees dismissed after July’s aggression. These workers have formed a new provisional working committee under the wing of Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union (MSWU) which is defunct now and the new officials have sent a notice to the Gurgaon deputy commissioner office, Haryana Government for a hunger strike on 7 November and a mass rally on Thursday.
A member of the provisional working committee of MSWU, Om Prakash commented on this saying,
“The hunger strike and the proposed rally are (being held) to protest against this decision and also seek remedial measure to reinstate all innocent workers, who are either not involved in any activity or not charged by SIT.”
He added that only 211 employees have been charged so far by the SIT that was put in place to investigate the violence. We hope all protests are peaceful and matters get sorted between the Management and workers so that there is a harmonious atmosphere at the work place for Maruti Suzuki work force.
Report by– Joy Chatterjee
