[Reader-list] Fwd: STRIKE AT MARUTI SUZUKI, MANESAR

[Nagraj Adve]

>From Nayanjyoti.
Nagraj

These are some preliminary observations from the site of the ongoing strike
in Maruti Suzuki Industries Ltd in IMT Manesar. A further analysis of the
situation can be attempted later as the movement unfolds.



> STRIKE AT MARUTI SUZUKI, MANESAR
>
> 15th June, 2011
>

- Hide quoted text -
>
> The government, even having resorted to its usual use of brute force
> has proved to be far more benign towards demands of Herculean
> proportions such as the eradication of corruption from the country
> than to the formation of one factory union. And not surprisingly,
> given that at stake is not just the ambition of a baba or an Anna but
> a very important section of the working class, which forms the
> foundation of one of the country's most important industries, i.e.
> Automobile. The implications of the ongoing strike in the Manesar
> plant of Maruti Suzuki are manifold, the impact it is sure to have on
> the state of the larger working class movement in the
> Gurgaon-Manesar-Bawal industrial belt being its most crucial aspect.
>
> The strike begun on the 4th of June in response to the management’s
> attempts at arm twisting the workers into signing a blank sheet of
> paper a day after they filed for registration of a new union the
> Maruti Suzuki Employees Union. This was done primarily to force
> workers to vouch allegiance to the already existing Maruti Suzuki
> Kamgar Union instituted in the factory as an extension of the Union in
> the the company's Gurgaon unit. The said union is fully controlled by
> the management and was formed after the brutal crushing down of the
> two month strike of workers in the Gurgaon unit of Maruti Udyog
> Limited in 2000. Given the complete absence of elections in the plant
> and the openly anti-worker nature of its very constitution, the
> existing union allowed the workers no real representation and
> bargaining power and remains a rankling reminder of the high handed
> treatment of the workers at the hands of the management.
> Maruti Suzuki India Ltd is the biggest automobile producer in the
> country and holds a significant share in the export market as well.
> Recently, the MD of the company proudly announced the company's plans
> for expanding the capacity of the Manesar plant by a whooping 2,50,000
> units per annum. In the same speech, he also announced the
> corporation's crossing the one million per annum production and sale
> landmark in the last fiscal year and a profit increase of 19.5%. It
> need not be mentioned that this laudable "achievement" has come at the
> expense of increasing work pressure on the workers and significant
> automation and labour reducing drives.
>
> It is evident that the company, known as having the most
> uncompromising management in all of Manesar, staunchly believes in
> squeezing out the very last possible profit that each of its worker's
> might bring to it. Moreover, it has the audacity to shamelessly
> acknowledge its exploitative extractive work processes on its official
> website, hailing workers working on the line as being instrumental to
> its cost cutting measures, invoking them as the real "cost-managers"
> of the company!! The "cost-managers" however hardly seem to take an
> equal pride in their designation and openly condemn the increasing
> pace of production and the dismal working conditions and wage
> structure as being absolutely insufferable.
>
> The management's high flying claims of its workers being one of the
> best paid and treated in the entire industrial area falls flat on its
> face at even the most superficial investigation into ground reality.
> The Manesar plant, the site for the ongoing agitation, employs around
> 3,000 workers working in three shifts round the clock, about half of
> whom are hired through contractors. The factory producing around 1,100
> cars per day has in the past year paced up its production to about
> 1,250 units per day. This implies that the factory churns out one car
> per 40 sec!! Such mind boggling productivity demands that the lines do
> not stop for a single minute, allowing the workers absolutely no
> respite, leaving no space for human fatigue or even a moment's slowing
> down or rest. The half an hour lunch break and 7 min tea break can
> hardly be counted as "breaks" given that the workers have to walk half
> a kilometer to the canteen and back for food before the bell rings and
> work resumes. The "above market rate" salaries are calculated using
> the minimum wage of the Haryana govt. (ranging from Rs 173- Rs 198
> depending on the level of skill) as its basic wage with the rest of
> the salary derived from production incentives. While the base remains
> the same for both permanent and contract based employees the
> incentives differ, including which the monthly wage of a contract
> worker comes to about Rs 6-7,000 and that of a permanent worker to
> about Rs 17,000. The company however penalizes a day's leave with a
> deduction of more than Rs 1,500 from a workers salary leaving anyone
> who meets the misfortune of missing a week's work with little above
> the minimum wage.
>
> The current strike while primarily raising the demand for a new union
> has to be seen as a response to such abominable practices of the
> factory's management. The unyielding and relentless attitude of the
> management was further evidenced in its immediate dismissal of the 11
> workers  including the elected representatives of the new union, while the
> complicity of the
>
> state and its sympathies with the corporates was made obvious in the
> Haryana Minister of State for Labour and Employment Shiv Charan Lal
> Sharma's announcement banning the strike. Further, the Labour
> Commissioner visiting the strike site declared the matter to be
> “internal” to Maruti Suzuki and its workers and therefore refrained
> from taking any position!
>
> Workers and unions of other factories in the automobile industry in
> the area however seem to have felt little need for taking such dubious
> (non?)positions and have extended unequivocal support to the striking
> workers. About 60 unions in the automobile sector, including those of
> big "mother" plants like Honda (IMT Manesar) and Hero Honda
> (Dharuhera) as well as those of auto parts manufacturers like Rico
> (Dharuhera) and FCC-Rico (Manesar) have come out in open support of
> the movement.  Also unprecedented, is the extension of support from
> the workers of another 60 factories in the area  many of which do not
>
> themselves have unions. Leaders of the above mentioned unions together
> with representatives from central trade unions like AITUC, CITU and
> HMS in the area have formed a 5 member committee to coordinate with
> the leaders of the proposed Maruti-Suzuki Employees Union and organize
> support from outside.  This show of solidarity included the
> organization of food supplies to the workers, kept starving for an
> entire day by the management after the factory canteen was closed down
> and food being brought from their homes refused at he gate. A one day
> demonstration  was organised at the factory gate on the 9th which saw
> representatives  of most of the unions in the area and about 2,500
> workers demonstrating in front of Maruti Suzuki's factory gates; the
>
> enthusiastic slogans from one side of the gate meeting  equally
> energetic and militant responses from the other. There was a set of
> gate meetings in major factories in the area organised on the 13th to
> garner further support for the strike amongst other workers and a
> possibility of a two hour tools-down also being debated, among other
> actions. All
> attempts at negotiation between the workers and the management as of yet
> have come to naught, with the management trying desperately to force a
> compromise on the workers, ready to enquire into taking back the 11
> suspended workers with 'requisite' disciplinary action, 'relaxing' the
> company policy of cutting 8days wage for every day's strike to 4days
> wage-cut for 1 day's strike, and forcing clauses of a possible 'recognition'
> of the union only as an appendage to the management-appointed union in the
> gurgaon plant both being subordinate to a highger committee managing both
> the unions, and an additional ulterior clause of it not being affiliated to
> any 'outside' or central trade union. it is needless to mention that all
> these moves are completely in disregard to any established trade union
> rights under the law. So law is either transgressed or modified accordingly,
> with willful compliance of the State  machinery.
>
> As is apparent in the above description of the solidarity shown towards
> workers of Maruti Suzuki by that of other factories, the conclusions of the
> Labour Commissioner seem likely to be belied with the strike appearing all
> set to snowball into a wider movement encompassing the entire auto industry
> in the Manesar-Gurgaon-Bawal industrial belt. This is further suggested by
> much talk of the possibility of intensification of the struggle in the
> region if the
> management remains obstinate in its stance, which might also see
> mobilization from the surrounding villages. One should remember that the
> region is no stranger to massive mobilization of workers from different
> factories for struggles apparently pertaining to a single company.
> - Show quoted text -
>
>
> The history of working class militancy in Gurgaon, relatively recent in its
> development as an industrial center as compared to Faridabad etc, stretches
> back to the strike at the Gurgaon plant of the same company, then known as
> Maruti Udyog Ltd in 2000. The three month long struggle hinged on a proposed
> revision of the incentive plan, shifting the premise of calculating the
> incentive bonus from the volume of production to the volume of sale and
> worker's attendance, directly transferring the uncertainty of an open market
> on the workers. The agitation led by Maruti Udyog Employees Union was
> brutally crushed down with the termination of more than 82 workers and the
> eventual dissolution of the union and the formation of the present union,
> openly run by the management itself. The failure proved decisive not only in
> that workers of Maruti Suzuki still remain throttled and unrepresented under
> the union formed then, but also in that the unfair and anti worker incentive
> plan executed then has stuck and is still a raw nerve with workers in the
> company. Further, the failure of the movement saw extensive retrenchment in
> the factory which was paralleled with the hiring of mostly contract based
> workers. The
> discontent of the workers reared its head again in 2005 when workers of
> Honda Motorcycle and Scooters India, Manesar raised a demand similar to the
> one being fought for by workers of Maruti Suzuki today, i.e. formation of a
> Union. The demand of a new union was finally met by the administration and
> the govt. after a long struggle and a major clash between the workers and
> police forces where about 15o workers got injured. The victory also marked
> the beginning of a high phase in the trade union movement in the area which
> however came to an
> unfortunate end in the terrible failure of the long and fierce movement in
> Rico Auto (Gurgaon) around wage increase, union formation and bad working
> conditions.  The Rico movement saw the working class
> of the area emerge as  one concerted force with workers from 50 other
> factories joining the strike and bringing all of Gurgaon and Manesar to a
> standstill in response to the killing of a striking worker by the police.
> The movement however ended at a dismal note with the union leaders striking
> a compromise with the  management and going in for a half baked
> reconciliation leaving the agitating workers feeling let down and skeptical.
> The demoralization that the Rico struggle had left workers of the area with
> seems to be finally wearing away in the face of the development of the
> ongoing strike which has seen even greater and more enthusiastic
> participation of other unions. A success for the workers of Maruti Suzuki
> might therefore play a significant role in reviving the militancy of the
> working class in the entire belt.
>
> Another, hope inspiring aspect of the ongoing agitation is the strong
> unity that has been forged between permanent and contract based
> sections of the workers. Much over half the workforce in the Gurgaon
> industrial belt is hired on contract basis. While the nature of the
> job for such workers is mostly the same as that of the permanents, the
> difference in wages remains staggering, creating a clear divide
> between the two. This has been cleverly used by the management at
> various occasions to hold the permanents at ransom during strikes and
> agitations. this difference and division is further reinforced by the
> different ways in which these two sections of workers are described
> under labour law, which makes the official unions almost redundant to
> the contract based labourer within the legal frame work. Most unions
> while also negotiating with the management on behalf of the contract
> workers do not allow them a vote or formal membership, leaving them
> more or less unrepresented and unorganised. These differences however
> were blurred to a great extent during the Rico movement where both
> contract and permanent workers remained outside the gate. Even the
> Honda movement did see an initial unity between the two which however
> eventually collapsed post the establishment of the union. The workers
> at Maruti Suzuki have all these examples before them and might be able
> to better address some of the points of contention that  previous
> movements.  Their ability to do so might prove decisive to the
> creation of a united working class consciousness.
>
> There are many such possibilities and promises to the workers and as
> many threats to the management and the owners that the ongoing
> movement holds out. The unyielding hand with which the company and the
> state is trying to crush it only serves as further proof of its
> militant potential. While the state uses the Babas and the Annas as
> ready diversions from the real question of how those mounds of black or
> white
>
> money were created in the first place and at whose expense, the
> workers of Maruti Suzuki carry on the fight, at the very core of the
> matter, where it obviously hurts the most.
>

subhashini, amit,  nayan

-- 

"nothing is stable, except instability;
 nothing is immovable, except movement."

engels, 1853