Fresh labour trouble is brewing at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant. This time the dispute is over a wage settlement issue that resulted in a scuffle between workers and plant management.
According to sources, work at the plant has been completely stopped from 7 p.m. on Wednesdaywith all the 3,000 workers going on strike.
This is almost nine months after the car market leader had arrived at a compromise with the striking workers at the same facility. The previous three-phased strike had resulted in Maruti losing over a lakh units of production over 33 days beginning June, 2011.
Company sources added that Wednesday’s scuffle also saw the Manesar plant head, Mr Vikram Khazanchi, suffer some injuries. He was appointed in February.
“A worker (technician), Jiya Lal, was suspended after an argument with the management. Some company officials were abusive, which led to a fight. Following this, all workers went on a strike in the second half of the day,” a worker said.
Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar facility has an annual capacity of about 5.5 lakh units across two assembly lines.
In a release, Maruti said that at least 40 managers and executives were injured and rushed to hospitals, while the attackers also set fire to property and damaged facilities. “The sequence of events began in the morning with a worker beating up a supervisor on the shop floor. The workers’ union prevented the management from taking disciplinary action against the worker. They blocked the exit gates and held the executives hostage,” the company said. It added that members of the senior management, who later met the union to resolve the issue, were also attacked by the workers.