Renewed talks between Toyota Kirloskar Motor management and its employees union to end the deadlock over labour issues at two plants near Bangalore have failed.
“The renewed talks have failed, suspension of 30 labourers is the contentious issue,” additional labour commissioner JT Jinkalappa told Press Trust of India.
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“The next step will be that we will have to prohibit the lockout, we will take that decision in a day or two, first we will have to submit the report to the government after that the decision will happen.”
Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM), a subsidiary of Toyota Motor of Japan, had on 16 March declared a lockout, following the failure of talks between the management and the union over wage negotiations. On 24 March, the management lifted the lockout but 32 employees did not resume work as they objected to signing a good conduct undertaking as demanded by the company and pressed for withdrawal of the suspension orders.
On late Thursday, the Labour department had renewed talks in an attempt to bring both the parties to a dialogue table to end the stalemate, the PTI report said.
Workers last week reduced the scale of a hunger strike after one was hospitalised.
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By GlobalDataTKM in a statement said: “We appreciate and thank the government of Karnataka for their efforts for the conciliation process between our union and management. Despite the labour department’s efforts the matter has not been concluded yet.”
“We now are in touch with the [department] for the next steps in this issue,” it added.
“Talks have failed, the management is adamant on its stand. We want suspension of 30 workers to be withdrawn. We had even said that if company agrees for the withdrawal of suspension we are ready to sign the undertaking on the representation of the union (not on individual basis) with some alteration on conditions mentioned in it,” TKM employees union president Prasanna Kumar said.
“We will wait and see what government will do. Labour department officials have told us they will submit a report to additional chief secretary labour department,” he said.
Kumar also pointed out that the relay fast by union employees had entered its 14th day.
The union is demanding a wage hike of INR4,000 as against Rs 3,050 proposed by the management.
On Monday, as he discussed reasons why TKM would not enter India’s sub-INR400,000 small car market, vice chairman Vikram Kirloskar said the workers would get an increase of INR3,100 in their monthly pay for the year.
“The union demanded an increase of INR8,000 (US$132) per month which is illogical when workers’ salaries are already in the range of INR38,000 ($628 and INR44,000 ($727),” Kirloskar said.
