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The Witch-Hunt Of Workers In Maruti Suzuki

By Sumati Panikkar

26 August, 2012
HardNews

With 500 sacked, how many more to go at Maruti? If might is right, what about the rule of law?

Gurgaon /Manesar (Haryana): Ensure zero labour unrest, says a notice outside the office of the deputy commissioner of Gurgaon, alternately called the mini secretariat. Ironically, this is the spot where workers routinely gather to protest. This is the spot where on July 25, 2005 thousands of striking workers from Honda Motors were brutally assaulted by the police. The protracted agitation at Maruti Suzuki plant in Manesar in 2011 saw 10,000 workers from Gurgaon and Manesar rallying to this office. And in late August 2012, yet again, the dark shadows of the Maruti lock-out with 160 workers still in jail, and 546 workers sacked, loomed large in the industrial area.

On August 17, a joint rally of workers was held from Gurgaon's Gaushala Maidan to the deputy commissioner’s office, to demand justice for the workers of Maruti Suzuki and Eastern Medikit. The 4,000 strong workers belonged to Maruti Udyog’s Gurgaon plant, Honda Motors, Hero Motorcorp, Rico Auto, Sunbeam Auto, Satyam Auto, Eastern Medikit, Lumax, Suzuki Motorcyle, Sono Koya and others.

Eastern Medikit manufactures medical equipment and is based in Udyog Vihar. Phase 1, Gurgaon. Employing 1,500 permanent workers and an equal number of workers on contract, the company produced surgical and non surgical medical equipment like syringes and blood bags. On May 18, 2012, Medikit’s 3,000 workers were in for a shock when the entire management fled without any notice. “Everything was fine on 17 May when we went back after the day's shift. We had no idea that the owners had this sinister surprise planned for us the next day,” said a worker.

Since then, Medikit’s 1,500 ‘permanent workers’ have been sitting on a dharna at the factory's gate. “What other options do we have when the company has locked us out,” they ask. “It has been three months, and yet the owner has not been caught or punished. Is this not a violation of law?”

The owner – officially, on the run -- has reportedly 'relocated' in Dehradun and is openly operating a plant. The jobless workers have held several rallies in the last three months. They have appealed directly to the authorities. Nothing has moved.

The sit-in has continued. Many workers are from other states and far-flung districts of Haryana. Like most workers from the industrial area in Manesar and Gurgaon, they share dingy, rented rooms. “You can’t imagine how difficult it is to sustain like this. We have families to run and our children's fees to pay. Room rents are very high. We are surviving on loans,” said the workers.

As for the sacking, activists asked, on what basis has the Maruti management selected 500 out of the 1,500 permanent workers?

On August 16, the Maruti management terminated 546 permanent workers. The Manesar factory reopened on August 21 under armed security with 300 workers in one shift slated to produce only 150 cars in the initial phase. The Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki was producing 1,600 to 1,700 cars every day before July 18 -- mainly brand names Swift and Dzire.

On August 16, Jiya Lal, the worker who had alleged casteist abuse by a supervisor on July 18, was arrested as the ‘prime accused’. On August 1, all the office bearers of the Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union (MSWU) were arrested. There are reports of family members of workers being harassed. A team comprising university professors and senior lawyer Vrinda Grover from Delhi tried to meet the Deputy Commissioner of Police of Gurgaon on August 16 -- they were denied a meeting. They submitted a memorandum to the police with detailed instances where “family members of the accused and suspects have been detailed illegally and local police across Haryana has been threatening, intimidating, harassing and using foul language with female family members of the workers”.

The father, brother and brother-in-law of the union’s general secretary, Amarjeet Singh, were picked up from their village in Rohtak and kept in police lock-up for several days between July 20 and August 2. The brother of the union’s legal advisor was picked up from his village and detained twice.

Anguished families have tried to come to terms with the crisis in their own ways. Seema (name changed), the young wife of an arrested worker, recounts how the police picked her husband from her village in Himachal Pradesh. “They were in plain clothes. My husband asked for the warrant; they threatened him. We were not even told where he was being taken,” said Seema.

He was put in Bhondsi Jail in Haryana along with 92 others. When she went to meet him, she said, she discovered that the workers were being beaten up, and made to sign on “blank papers”. Helpless, Seema is now staying alone in a rented room, in order to meet her husband in jail, and find some legal help.

The mother of another arrested worker narrated how her son was taken away from their house in Om Nagar in Gurgaon. “They first took him for questioning and let him off after a statement. Nine days later, they came back and arrested him. Our pleas fell on deaf ears,” said the mother. “He was the only earning member of our family. His wife, with a 4 month old child, is in shock.”

“Everything was fine on 17 May when we went back after the day's shift. We had no idea that the owners had this sinister surprise planned for us the next day,” said a worker.

Many families have come to Manesar from other states to seek a legal solution. Activists are trying to create support groups with the families. At another level, a committee comprising 16 plant-level unions from the Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera industrial region and central trade unions has been formed to plan solidarity actions and provide legal help to the workers of Maruti and Eastern Medikit.

“The SIT is hand-in-glove with the Haryana government. It is no secret. The contractors thrive with government patronage,” said a union leader in the solidarity rally with Maruti workers on August 18 in Gurgaon. “The government is a stooge of Suzuki,” said another leader. “These Japanese do not even listen to Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.” Raj Kumar, president of the Rico Auto workers’ Union, Dharuhera, said, “They talk of 'development' – when workers live on empty stomachs.”

In terms of industrial unrest in India in the past decade, the auto sector has seen the most number of strikes and agitations. According to a report by the Mumbai-based Research Unit for Political Economy (RUPE), the auto industry has grown exponentially from 8.5 million vehicles in 2004-05 to 20.4 million in 2011-12. In the same time period, the real wages of workers in the auto sector fell by 18.9 per cent when the consumer price index is taken into account.

As for the sacking, activists asked, on what basis has the Maruti management selected 500 out of the 1,500 permanent workers? “The management has sacked them without any inquiry or prior notice. What kind of 'rule of law' is this?” asked a union leader from the Al-India United Trade Union Centre (AITUC).

“One of the strengths of the ‘non-violent’ Maruti agitation last year was the unity between contract and permanent workers. This move to sack 500 permanent workers is clearly a play to divide workers – and send a message across the industrial belt to all trade unions,” said Surendra Singh of Centre of Trade Unions (CITU).

The FIR mentions 55 names (an additional list of 160 workers has also been prepared by the police, but it remains undisclosed), police has arrested over 160 workers, while the management has sacked 546 based on “evidence of involvement”. On what the management has based it is unclear, and the contradictions are obvious. What will the management do with the 1,500 contract workers? Most of them are still on the run fearing persecution, and there is anyway the illegality and informality of the contract system that further gives space for management arbitrariness.

The management has said that it would “enquire thoroughly into the background of the workers” before employing them. That would ensure, said an activist Shyambir from Iquilabi Mazdoor Kendra, that workers with any history of assertion of their fundamental rights or legitimate union activity – however legal and peaceful -- will not be employed.

A special force of armed security guards, apart from a posse of Rapid Action Force, will be posted at the factory site. Said workers in Manesar: “The company can now legitimately arm its hired bouncers and wrestlers, something they had been doing surreptitiously earlier all over the place.”

Sumati Panikkar is a Delhi based journalist

© 2003-2012 Copyright Hard News Media (P) Ltd.




 

 


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