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-   -   MSIL factory strike: Workers deliberately sabotaging the quality of cars. (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/106925-msil-factory-strike-workers-deliberately-sabotaging-quality-cars.html)

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Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant again hit by labour unrest - The Economic Times

The workers of the Manesar have now put up a new form of protest , deliberately sabotage the quality of cars from the plant thus stopping cars from going out of the factory.

Now a concern came to my mind suppose due to some oversight few hundred of such cars hits the Indian markets then who is responsible for the catastrophe which might happen due to faulty cars. Protesting is fine and is a fundamental right of the citizen but playing with life and money of customers is not acceptable.

Although the headline sounds sensational, I don't think workers would play with customer's lives. The "sabotage" may be nothing more than not fixing a RVM or fixing the wrong color door handles etc.

In a fresh face-off, workers at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant on Monday rejected the imposition of a ‘good conduct’ bond that the management insisted they must sign before entering the factory. That led to a total shutdown and a production loss of 1,200 vehicles.

The bond says workers would follow discipline, not get involved in absenteeism, not resort to go-slow tactics, follow the production principle, and not sabotage production or indulge in activities that may hamper normal production.

The management pointed out the quality and quantity of cars being produced had been deteriorating since the more than 2,000 workers called off their 11-day strike in mid-June. The workers had then demanded a new union and the management had agreed to take back five workers dismissed earlier.

Sources in Maruti say the number of cars produced has, on average, been 100 units fewer than the daily targets, leading to a loss of Rs 3 crore a day. “Since this indiscipline has been going on for the last 45 days of production, the total loss on account of the lower number of cars produced is to the tune of Rs 135 crore already,” says a senior executive in the company.

Executives say in the last three days, serious quality problems have been observed. For example, vehicle doors fell during production as they were not properly clamped, wiring harnesses had cuts, bodies had dents and critical components were left improperly fitted.

The company suspended 10 workers and dismissed another five for sabotaging production and causing quality problems last week. The company is of the view the situation is directly harming customer trust. It had sent out warning letters and advisories to workers earlier.

Between August 23 and 25, Manesar was supposed to produce 3,700 units. The actual production was around 1,570 units. Of that, only 969 units got quality clearance, that is only 62 per cent cars produced.


Source: Business Standard

This is gonna be real bad for the diesel mills from MSIL :(

This is becoming a recurring issue at Manesar. I hope Maruti gets its Gujarat plant up and running ASAP. We maybe still a year or two away from this happening.

For someone who has booked the car (me included), this news does not make good reading. Delays do not hurt anyone but any talk about compromising on quality is disturbing. At the end of the day, the news maybe pure sensationalism but how can a buyer be sure?

My 2p, I may be wrong. The internals of factories are complex. Disciplinary action, reprimands, warnings, terminations etc., are all part and parcel of a manufacturers tasks in a factory.

I too think this issue is being sensationalized, by 1) the workers themselves, maybe trying to take advantage of recent bad times for Maruti 2) the media. But my opinion of the ET article is that they were just reporting an incident.

I don't think there is anything for expectant customers to be worried about. Maruti has enough experience in this field, in India.

This is attrocious.How can the workers be allowed to protest in this way.Nice that few has been dismissed so that it may be an action set as an example.I am sure such defective vehicles would never hit roads if the quality assurance dept would be proactive.
ram

The persons responsible should be behind bars. There is no excuse for playing with people's lives. I never expected unions to stoop to these levels. Goes to show, they can go to any extent. Company management is equally responsible for this.

Customers should reject deliveries of vehicles starting from today.

This news is indeed appalling. Reminds me of the pre-90s era when the production was under the mercy of the trade unions. Even then I didn't hear such sabotaging.
At the end of the day the loss is of MSIL. News like this spreads like fire and given the fact that its trust which is the main driving force for MSIL's sales, this might be a huge dent to its image. Lets see where all this leads to.

This is as bad as it can get, the striking workers need to understand that the customers life is also important (More important as compared to the problems they are having with the management). At the end of it all the striking unions need to understand that they are doing harm to themselves by advocating this action (If MSIL isn't doing well financially then its employees will also be impacted).

Such actions need to be dealt with very seriously and i would expect MSIL management to not let these workers go free as they are playing with people's life and safety.

This is not a strike. This is anger and vengeance.

Frankly, with the court rejecting the union's claim to legitimacy, the power-hungry union leaders would be looking for an outlet for their frustration.

Ideally the culprits should be identified and subject to criminal prosecution, except that the QA department is a filter for the bad work and hopefully none of these cars reach the market. The trouble is that it causes some pain with rework of reject cars and increases cost to market.

This is one of the reason why now MSIL will directly get the engines from FIAT ranjangaon factory. See the link below

Fiat to make diesel engines for Maruti Suzuki at its Ranjangaon plant - Yahoo!

A confidence shaking news. Already with all that Quality checks rattles and niggles creep in. Now this is like opening the floodgates of issues.
As usual customer suffers.

Maruti halts production for 2nd day - Maruti shares plunge

Source : CNN IBN

Manesar: Maruti halts production for 2nd day - India News - IBNLive

I really hope Maruti Suzuki - the most reputed automobile manufacturer in India comes out of this crisis

So these are the reasons for the strike:
Welcome to socialism! Karl Marx, look at the beast you created.

On the other hand, I believe the quality check department will surely not allow these vehicles to touch the road.
No one at Suzuki would want a loss of face in Indian markets.

I agree in theory that should happen, but how many times in the past we have seen Quality check cleared something and only a little while later we see problems in the finished/released product. I see it almost every week.

As a customer i am surely going to be apprehensive about buying a Maruti/Suzuki product for foreseeable future, that does not mean i wont buy one or wouldn't recommend buying one, only worried albeit only slightly. Also if possible if i have to buy a Maruti product maybe i will delay my purchase decision.