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Maruti workers want government help in dispute

Nearly 2,000 striking workers from India's largest carmaker, Maruti Udyog, demonstrated on Wednesday to demand that the government intervene to end a three-month-old labour dispute.

"It's best a third party intervene since the relationship is a little tense," said G K Walia, treasurer of the Maruti Udyog Employees Union (MUEU).

He called on Heavy Industries Minister Manohar Joshi to try to break the deadlock, while demonstrating workers were shouting their determination to press their demands.

Maruti, struggling to regain sliding market share in an increasingly cutthroat industry and gear up for privatisation, is insisting the union accept a new productivity-linked pay incentive scheme. The company is also demanding that the union not contest disciplinary action against 75 strikers.

Maruti, a joint venture of the Indian government and Japan's Suzuki Motor Co, has dominated India's car market for more than 15 years with its small, low-priced cars.

It holds nearly a 55 per cent share of India's car market, but that is down from the over 80 per cent chunk it held more than two years ago.

Maruti's demands are part of a four-point undertaking, which the union is being asked to sign before the workers can go back to their jobs. The union has accepted two of the four demands.

All or nothing

The company insists, however, it is an all-or-nothing deal.

"The undertaking has to be accepted entirely. Neither the union nor the management can choose from it," a spokesman for Maruti Udyog said.

But the union says it was not consulted on the pledge. "It violates the spirit of collective bargaining," MUEU general secretary Mathew Abraham said outside the industry minister's offices where the protesters massed.

Maruti's management backed down from an earlier insistence that each worker sign a good conduct pledge before returning to work.

Production plunged to 299 vehicles on the day the strike began on October 12 from the normal volume of 1,200-1,400 per day.

Maruti says output has returned to normal with the help of supervisors, contract workers, apprentices and nearly 1,500 workers who have returned to work out of the total unionised workforce of 4,515.

"We want normalcy to return, but they're refusing to budge," said G Walia, MUEU's treasurer.

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