On a day when the Pune labour court rapped the Bajaj Auto Union, dismissing its request for an adjournment of the hearing of a petition filed by the company, Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj reiterated that the Union’s demand for ESOPs would not be entertained under any circumstance.

“No one, not even the Chairman, has got free shares in the last 50 years, and we are not about to start now,” Bajaj said, asserting that there was no law in the world that compelled a company to give ESOPs. “This (stand) should not be interpreted as the Company’s arrogance, but be read as logical humility,” he said, equating the workers’ demand to that of a wayward child and that of the company as a parent that had to be “fair but firm”.

There were always issues in any plant, Bajaj maintained, adding that they had to be sorted out on a daily basis. “But first they have to forget about shares, and come back to work,” he said, emphatic that even if production at the Chakan plant had to be shut for 500 days, this stand would not change.

“A wage agreement happens every year, and we are waiting to sit across the table and negotiate, but there can be no preconditions,” Bajaj said, accusing the leaders of the Vishwakalyan Kamgar Sanghatana (VKS) union of obfuscating issues, misguiding its members and raising false hopes.

Earlier in the day, in its second hearing of a petition filed by Bajaj Auto seeking that the strike be declared illegal, Pune labour court judge N.S. Kole dismissed an application by the VKS asking for time. The company should submit payslips so workers would know on what grounds their June salaries had been cut, and the reply would be based on this, the application had said.

In his order the judge observed that the Union’s motives did not appear to be honest and hence the request was not being granted. The case will next be heard on July 22, irrespective of whether the union filed its written reply to the company’s statement and appointed a lawyer or not, the order said.

Workers at Bajaj Auto’s Chakan plant have been on strike since June 25 because the management rejected the union’s demand for 500 shares for each of its 900 members at a price of Re 1 a share.

It had written a letter to the management stating its intention of work stoppage from June 28 on this issue. The Union is also alleging that Bajaj Auto is dragging its feet on a wage revision due in April, and that it has suspended 21 workers unfairly.

Though Bajaj Auto is achieving over 90% of its Chakan production by moving a part of it to its Aurangabad plant, Rajiv Bajaj said he would be gravely worried if the current issue prolonged, especially in view of the forthcoming festival season.

“But this is not about production loss, but how permanent is the damage to the culture of improvement that we had at the Chakan plant,” he said.

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