Troubling news from India yesterday. Following an alleged caste slur by a supervisor, a meeting between the Maruti Suzuki union and management turned nasty and parts of the plant – including an office block and security gate were set on fire. An HR supervisor got caught in the blaze and died, many more were injured, about 100 arrested, charges will include attempted murder.
“Reminds me of the Korean unions at their worst,” one of our number commented. The TV news clips showed burning buildings, blood-spattered people and smashed-up cars in scenes more reminiscent of some parts of the Middle East lately than the plant that knocks out your Suzuki Alto or Nissan Pixo. Today, the ‘he said, no he said’ continued with claims that some workers had been planning the confrontation (our latest update is here) but it’ll be a while yet before the truth is out fully.
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Manesar has been a troubled site and workers there were on strike for about four months last year but Maruti has moved to make changes with new management and this latest, and fatal uprising, will be disappointing. With Japanese nationals caught up – and in hospital – Suzuki is also likely to take a dim view.
You may recall the violence that surrounded the new Tata Nano plant a year or two back – this was due to farmers feeling they’d been forced off their land, and not paid a fair compensation – and that led to Tata abandoning a 95% complete factory for a more welcoming state.
Obviously fed up with last year’s events at Manesar, Maruti recently signed for land for a 250,000-unit plant in Gujarat but is nonetheless very established at Gurgaon and Manesar in Haryana which, combined, can already build up to 1.5m units and the new Manesar C plant, adding 250,000, is due on stream in mid fiscal 2013-14. So abandonment isn’t really an option. How the automaker goes forward from here will be interesting.
Another interesting development, which we hope won’t end up with flames in Kyushu, is the Renault-Nissan alliance’s announcement the next Rogue – North America’s variation of the Qashqai/Dualis – will be built at the under-used Samsung plant in Korea. With FTAs in place between South Korea and Europe and the US, this makes sense, but we were initially a little mystified because Americas chief Carlos Taveres told the Wall Street Journal in January 2011 the model would come to Smyrna, Tennessee, next generation, and that was repeated by Nissan North America in a press release about Smyrna as recently as 28 June. We’ve now learned the Busan move is to expand global Rogue capacity and is in addition to US output.
Shake-ups at GM Europe/Opel continued this week. First, we learned who the caretaker chairman would be, and, later, of his commitment to previous management’s deals and, meantime, we learned the finance and engineering heads had been, apparently, sacked. No word yet on whether they are being reassigned within GM or heading off outside.
And, speaking of leaving an automaker, we also learned that a Mr Pelata is departing Renault. The final chapter in an extraordinary scandal.
Still in France, the PSA job cuts plan rumbles on with politicians clearly rattled and the automaker standing firm. This is our latest on that.
Have a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
