The ongoing fracas at the Maruti plant in Gurgaon and Manesar has brought a long-festering issue to the fore: Have the MNCs been foolish in ignoring the advice of HR experts, given free over the last decade?
Bosch, the German MNC, successfully resisted three attempts of the workers to form a trade union, removing workers alleged to be indulging in union activities. Eventually, workers formed an internal union, namely Bosch Chassis Systems Kamgar Sanghatana.
A Korean-based MNC, Wonjin Autoparts Ltd, is a leading manufacturer of automobile heat exchanger. The workers at the Chennai plant formed a union, which has been since under attack and its struggle for recognition continues. The management, in response, has shifted some of its operations to its Pune plant, transferring 21 workers on the pretext of installing new machinery. As the union took the matter to the court, the management gave an undertaking that the workers would only be required to stay for a maximum period of two months. However, they were forced to stay longer and the union struggle for recognition continues.
In 2007, the workers in Hyundai Motors formed a trade union at the Chennai facility, much against the wishes of the management, which refused to recognise it and maintained that it would hold negotiations only with the seven-member workers committee which has been functioning for several years. It transferred the union office bearers to its other plants. The company dismissed 65, suspended another 34, and enforced pay cuts on another 840 workers. In April 2009, the union went on an indefinite strike, but the management refused to budge. They are wary of recognising an outside union with political affiliations because the union chief belonged to CITU, which is a communist union. The matter is still not resolved.
Similarly, the recognition of a trade union was again a bone of contention between the workers and management of the Italian auto company, Graziano Transmissions in 2008. It culminated in a physical assault on the CEO, who later succumbed to injuries and died.
When 1,800 casual workers at the Dharuvera plant of Hero Honda company sought to join the union of their choice, cases under the Arms Act and Section 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC was filed against the leaders.
No, we can't
In terms of work stoppages, it is the employers who are increasingly prone to stop work.
In the Manesar case, the management imposed a conditional lockout — conditional on the workers signing a good conduct bond, because, said a company official, workers were indulging in sabotaging, go-slow and deliberately causing quality problems.
The bond required the workers to declare they would “not resort to go slow, intermittent stoppage of work, stay-in-strike, work-to-rule, sabotage or otherwise indulge in any activity, which would hamper normal production in the factory”.
On August 29, the company suspended and dismissed 21 employees on charges of sabotaging and alleged quality issues. It enforced a ‘good conduct bond' on them as a condition for entering the factory. Sixty two workers have been dismissed or suspended and, since then, the company has been making alternative labour arrangements.
It is also interesting that it was on August 29 that the Haryana labour department rejected the workers' application for registering their own trade union at the Manesar plant on the grounds that the workers at the plant were members of an already existing union at Gurgaon facility. It said the company was deducting Rs 10 every month from the workers' salary towards union membership. The workers at Manesar, however, had not identified with the Gurgaon union and claimed that it was management-controlled, which is a typical Communist ploy to mislead and incite workers.
But it is not the communists alone who are looking for an easy ride.
Every political party is out there and it serves the MNCs right for ignoring some basic truths about India.
The politics of it
It is beginning to look like that, because at the heart of the problem is a political issue: Can the workers be organised and who will organise them?
The Constitution guarantees the fundamental right to association. This means trade unions. And this is the reality which the MNCs have to come to terms with.
It was clear from the time that the CPI started to move in at the Honda plant that the comrades were salivating — as well they might. The MNCs, in preventing (by hook or by crook) the formation of unions, had left a vacuum.
In that sense, this is a systemic issue which will be relevant for many years. Like nature, politics doesn't like vacuums.
The comrades then moved in. In Manesar, it is the AITUC which is calling the shots.
The Maruti confrontation has also brought to the fore some interesting changes. For example, until the Fifth Pay Commission, the common understanding was that the private sector had a higher capacity to pay, while the public sector lagged behind.
Now after the Sixth Pay Commission, this conventional wisdom has undergone a transformation. Private sector trade unions are citing its award as a benchmark.
The assured high minimum wages in NREGA is another cause for discontent and it has become another benchmark for the seasonal workers.
The MNCs are in for a rough ride. They need to put their seat belts on.