The timing of Tata Group Chairman, Mr Ratan Tata's comments to The Times of London could scarcely have been worse. Just a day after Mr Karl Ulrich Koehler, head of Tata Steel's European operations, praised steel unions for their reaction to the potential loss of 1,500 jobs at two of the company's plants in the north east of England, the group's chairman launched a remarkably candid attack on the work ethic of British management.

Contrasting attitudes among management when the company first took over at British subsidiaries Jaguar Land Rover and Corus - the former title of the British steel operations - with those in India, he warned no one was willing to “go the extra mile”.

“In India, “if you are in a crisis, if it means working to midnight, you would do it. The worker in JLR seems to be willing to do that, the management is not,” the Times reported him as saying.

When the Tata group first took over at JLR the engineering group would be entirely empty by the afternoon, he recounted to the paper.

The comments have hit a nerve here in the UK — despite Mr Tata's qualification that the new management teams brought in had changed all of that — and it had just been about management rather than the workers.

Productivity is a highly sensitive issue in the UK, which is attempting to maintain economic growth and rebalance the economy away from it's reliance on financial services and towards areas as manufacturing and innovation. Mr Tata is a close advisor to the Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron - he was one of the first business chiefs that Mr Cameron met after entering Downing Street last May. He sits on a business advisory group to the Prime Minister.

The comments did not seem to rile trade unionists, however, “he's entitled to his opinion” said Unite spokesman Mr Ciaran Naidoo.

“It's the coalition government that doesn't go the extra mile. They don't do anything to support British manufacturing.”

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