So is the strike at Maruti Suzuki’s Northern India Manesar plant really over?
It appears all 2,000 or so of the workers have returned home – many of whom in an extraordinary detail revealed to just-auto this week – have not had a bath for 13 days due to a factory sit-in.
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So far so good, with one of the bones of contention seemingly resolved, namely that of the reinstatement of 11 sacked workers – who have now been taken back – if not exactly with open arms.
But that’s only the half of it surely. This bitterly divisive dispute focused on union recognition and the apparent reluctance of Maruti to countenance a second organisation on top of its – apparently officially-sanctioned – labour body.
Calls by just-auto today (17 June) to the national secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress – not a body to hide its political affiliations if you look on its website – elicited the following: “The 11 workers have been taken back – the recognition issue is not mentioned as there is no law that says you have to recognise a union.”
“The new union is functioning whether it is recognised or not. Let us see how the management, after the factory is opened, how it conducts itself.”
Maruti might beg to differ as to its ‘conduct,’ having issued a fairly robust view of any further union activity at the Manesar factory.
“We have a fully-fledged recognised union for the last 28 years – the Maruti Employees Union – we can’t have a second union – we feel all interests of the workers will be represented collectively by this one union,” was the automaker’s take to just-auto.
Have the cracks just been papered over? Has this argument simply been put to bed for a while only to flare back up again once the new union – recognised or not – starts to agitate once more?
