Workers at the Maruti Suzuki manufacturing facility at Manesar in Haryana have gone on strike halting production at the plant. About 2000 workers have gone on strike since Saturday demanding recognition of a new union. The management has responded to this and termed the strike as ‘illegal’.
The company fired 11 of its 2000 employees on the production line, with production stoppage at the plant. The strike has led to a production loss of 1200 cars per day along with the company losing close to Rs. 100 crore. The stike, which started off on Saturday is unlikely to cause any delay in deliveries. The Manesar plant manufactures the Swift, Swift DZire and the SX4.
According to spokesman inputs, discussions with the striking workers are on to resolve the crisis but, until then the production will remain affected. This also comes as Maruti is preparing to launch the much awaited new Maruti Suzuki Swift in India.
Maruti Suzuki’s other manufacturing unit at Gurgaon is not affected by the strike and production at the facility is not affected by the strike at the Haryana plant.
Recently, there have been reports of strikes at a couple of units owned by multi-national automakers including Hyundai and Chevrolet. Production at the GM plant in Gujarat was adversely affected by back to back strikes by workers who were demanding better working condition among other demands. South Korean automaker, Hyundai Motor India Ltd. also had to face the striking workforce at their plant and so did two wheeler makers, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd.
Maruti is investing heavily to improve the capacity of its present manufacturing units. The company plans to produce 750,000 vehicles by 2012 from its Manesar plant. The Gurgaon facility meanwhile has a capacity of 1 million units. In addition to this Maruti Suzuki also plans to build a new factory with an annual capacity of 1 million units and with an investment of INR 60 billion.
Also see – Labour Strike at GM’s Halol Plant
Source – TheWallStreetJournal
Image courtesy – TheHindu
