[sourabhzen]

I am surprised to see comments that almost holds MSIL responsible for a murder in their plant. The killers did not have any excuse for brutally murdering a human being, not even the fact that they were not allowed to pee (which I am sure is an exaggeration, come on guys you got to pee when you got to pee).

MSIL give a kind of job security that others can't even dream of. If the guys had problems with the work culture here then why are they fighting (read killing) for a permanent job in a company that treats them like cattle?

Killing, for any reason, can not be justified by any reasoning.

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by sourabhzen

I am surprised to see comments that almost holds MSIL responsible for a murder in their plant. The killers did not have any excuse for brutally murdering a human being, not even the fact that they were not allowed to pee (which I am sure is an exaggeration, come on guys you got to pee when you got to pee).

MSIL give a kind of job security that others can't even dream of. If the guys had problems with the work culture here then why are they fighting (read killing) for a permanent job in a company that treats them like cattle?

Killing, for any reason, can not be justified by any reasoning.

I don't think any of us here have been providing any justification for killings or murders here. We only are trying to speculate on the root cause and only think that things cannot be dismissed off using a black and white filter. MSIL would have to shoulder some responsibility given that their GM HR was murdered on their premises by another set of their own permanent or contract employees. MSIL cannot just wash off their hands totally and walk away since these same set of problems will continue to persist and maybe turn another group of employees into potential murderers. That is just downright callous. How can they guarantee that such an incident never happens again unless of course they plan to build some sort of gulag/concentration camp with armed guards and German shepherds. One should also note that MSIL have themselves tried to justify their own working process (long hours with very limited breaks) openly in press reports saying that there is nothing wrong with it so what these disgruntled employees are reporting is not exactly urban legend. We also need to understand the social strata from which these laborers are drawn from and obviously when they see that about 1/3rd of the employees earn almost 2.5 times more than them doing the same work there is bound to be unrest. In fact someone here on this thread posted that MSIL are actually in contravention of labor laws where they are not allowed to use contract labor in core manufacturing processes. Which part of contract labor means job security. Anybody would want to get a permanent position from a contract basis.

There is no point glorifying the acts of MSIL here giving them some gallantry award as they have been even buying off the labor leaders to find temporary solutions during the previous strikes. Its time the Suzuki family is told in no uncertain terms to respect labor laws and work out the issue with their unions. We should also be cognizant of the fact the Suzuki as a group does not have much options outside India and this is their biggest market. There is no point throwing their hoity-toity attitude to Indians because they are the largest seller of cheap cars here. That being said the perpetrators of this heinous crime of murder must be punished through proper legal enforcement. Not through such drug induced hallucinations of trying to blame Maoists and what not.

[.sushilkumar]

reading the news and print media, it appears to me that everyone is out in open to prosecute the workers by holding a media court room. where as i have no doubt that media in India usually takes side where it sees more money & MSIL mgmt has been planting various stories with all kind of theories ranging from hands of Maoists in violence to involvement of outsiders to blaming it on haryana people , what really Bother is that nobody is ready to hear from workers what happened that they went this far.

surprisingly even on this thread also, i am seeing very less views expressed .

[lurker]

doubt if anybody has supported the assault by workers on the management, which has many other dimensions of being well-planned, & well-executed operation rather than a simple act of rage. that is for a broader debate.

when you have left such a conducive environment to fester and that too unsupervised by ministry of labour, ministry of HR, Human rights comission, or the Govt of Haryana then one leaves the door open for an aggrieved party (there's always somebody around) like Naxalites, political groups, maoists, friendly neighbouring intel agencies (yes, that too is possible), powerful competitors to exploit such a loophole. You already have the powderkeg, it just needs someone to come and light it or even more convenient, to instigate someone else to light it. It's just a matter of time when somebody is going to take advantage of such a situation and have a go at you. It's normal for corporates and management, by nature, to be narrow-minded and focus on short term tactical gains at the expense of everything else. No need to complaint about that, since that is the nature of the beast. But then if things go totally unsupervised it's only a question of 'when' and not 'if'.

In fact someone here on this thread posted that MSIL are actually in contravention of labor laws where they are not allowed to use contract labor in core manufacturing processes. Which part of contract labor means job security. Anybody would want to get a permanent position from a contract basis.

as pointed out before, Suzuki is following the practices of the greenfield industries like private banking which have been allowed to function without labor unions. And similar practice like hiring contract labor has been borrowed from them as well. Now contract labor means no pensions, no unions, no job security and can be fired at will, and proportionally lower wages as compared to regular employees. That Suzuki has managed to come under the umbrella of support services like IT, banking etc is a sleight of hand by the supervising authorities despite being a manufacturing-intensive heavy industry, but the exception granted seems to have caused major harm to the company itself rather than anybody else.

[.sushilkumar]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

There is no point glorifying the acts of MSIL here giving them some gallantry award as they have been even buying off the labor leaders to find temporary solutions during the previous strikes. Its time the Suzuki family is told in no uncertain terms to respect labor laws and work out the issue with their unions. We should also be cognizant of the fact the Suzuki as a group does not have much options outside India and this is their biggest market. There is no point throwing their hoity-toity attitude to Indians because they are the largest seller of cheap cars here. That being said the perpetrators of this heinous crime of murder must be punished through proper legal enforcement. Not through such drug induced hallucinations of trying to blame Maoists and what not.

+1 . TO quote from their own website. this dates some 5 years back and if i remeber reading correctly , it has crossed some 50 % now ( Could n;t find that article ) . Moreover in 2011 -12 they paid 150 % dividend to it;s share holder . as Majority id held by Suzuki japan, they not received handsome dividend but also share in profit.


Maruti share in parent profit rises to 34 per cent

New Delhi: Despite the significant negative impact of the new depreciation policy on Maruti Suzuki's profits, the auto maker's contribution to its Japanese parent's kitty has increased in 2007-08. Suzuki generated 34% of its total profits from its Indian arm during the year compared with 32% in 2006-07.

Maruti Suzuki contributed Rs 941 crore to Suzuki's total profits of Rs 2,800 crore (¥80.25 billion) last year. India's largest car maker, in which Suzuki owns 54.4% of equity, had made a total profit of Rs 1,730.8 crore in the 2008 fiscal.

Maruti's profit took a hit of around Rs 211 crore on account of the new depreciation policy. Had this not been factored in, the Indian public listed firm would have contributed 37.5% to the parent's profit.

Maruti also increased its contribution to Suzuki's global sales. The Indian arm, which sold 7.64 lakh cars last financial year, accounted for 31.12% of Suzuki's global production of 24.5 lakh cars. During the year, Maruti also overtook Suzuki in domestic sales. It sold 7.11 lakh units in India in 2007-08, while Suzuki sold 6.73 lakh units in its home country Japan.

Maruti Suzuki managing director Shinzo Nakanishi said, "We are expecting Maruti to contribute a bigger share in profits and higher volume for Suzuki's global operations. Owing to the success of Maruti in India and its importance for our global plans, we are investing Rs 9,000 crore in new manufacturing facilities and an R&D unit. Besides, Suzuki's next world strategic model, A-Star, will be manufactured only in India for the global market."

Suzuki has set a target to sell 26.34 lakh cars globally in the current fiscal year and Maruti will reach an installed production capacity of 10 lakh units by October this year. The Indian firm is likely to contribute around 40% to Suzuki¿s global sales in the next few years.

[chncar]

Originally Posted by .sushilkumar

what really Bother is that nobody is ready to hear from workers what happened that they went this far.

surprisingly even on this thread also, i am seeing very less views expressed .

Yes, once a group of people behave like third rate murderous thugs, that would be the natural reaction of civilized people anywhere. Anyways, your esteemed 'workers union' is in hiding like a bunch of cowards instead of telling the world "what happened that they went this far", except for one iphone-owning specimen who e-mailed an version of events stating that the management of MSIL hired hundreds of outside goons to destroy their own property and beat themselves mercilessly!

Only dyed in the wool communist sympathizers would still try to justify and rationalize their actions.

[.sushilkumar]

Originally Posted by chncar

Yes, once a group of people behave like third rate murderous thugs, that would be the natural reaction of civilized people anywhere. Anyways, your esteemed 'workers union' is in hiding like a bunch of cowards instead of telling the world "what happened that they went this far", except for one iphone-owning specimen who e-mailed an version of events stating that the management of MSIL hired hundreds of outside goons to destroy their own property and beat themselves mercilessly!

Only dyed in the wool communist sympathizers would still try to justify and rationalize their actions.

Dude , you are getting personnel and will appreciate if you stop using words ike "thugs", "murderers" & "communist' . you are not the law that you can tag them these label's . even if they are pronounced guilty in court, than also these terms cannot be used. So Will appreciate if you get back to parliamentary language befitting a public forum like T- bhp.

No body is justifying the killing of GM But just because He has been killed in mob fury, does n ;t hold All 3000 workers as third degree murderers. it could be case of personnel enmity as well.Who knows some body from mgmt itself has murdered the GM to settle scores with him & in turn tried to put the blame on workers .

There can be endless possibilities. As for Iphone goes , anybody can own one or quite possible that some body who owned that iPhone helped the so called specimen to issue those statement to press.

it just goes into show the narrow mindedness of few people IMO.

[chncar]

Originally Posted by .sushilkumar

Dude , you are getting personnel and will appreciate if you stop using words ike "thugs", "murderers" & "communist' . you are not the law that you can tag them these label's . even if they are pronounced guilty in court, than also these terms cannot be used. So Will appreciate if you get back to parliamentary language befitting a public forum like T- bhp.

No body is justifying the killing of GM But just because He has been killed in mob fury, does n ;t hold All 3000 workers as third degree murderers. it could be case of personnel enmity as well.Who knows some body from mgmt itself has murdered the GM to settle scores with him & in turn tried to put the blame on workers .

There can be endless possibilities. As for Iphone goes , anybody can own one or quite possible that some body who owned that iPhone helped the so called specimen to issue those statement to press.

it just goes into show the narrow mindedness of few people IMO.

OK. Our apologies then, to all the 400% peaceful and 'model behavior' workers who did nothing wrong. Obviously the management stage-managed the riot, got themselves thrashed within an inch of their life just for fun, and also murdered their colleague just for the heck of it.

[1100D]

Not sure what the company employed security guards were doing. Police may have taken time, but the security guards could have provided some resistence.

Moreover one needs to analyse how a "collective" force could motivate itself to impart, what they thought at that time, to be justice. How could the faith in the laws of the land be brought to this low.

Maybe one person died (may not have been with the intent of being killed). We are being rightfully sympathetic to him and his side. But then, in our country, dont we see many instances of innocent lives being lost to other peoples anger?

The pent up frustration of dying bit by bit everyday and loosing hope of a promise of a better life, when one section of the same organisation (not necessarily the Permanent workers, but the management types) are "seemingly" much well off.

So where do they take their greivances? The human resources. But what do they see? Bending of rules to workaround the labour laws, that pleases the higher ups. All engrossed in the process of attracting new shareholders, or keeping the existing ones pleased.

Infact its almost the same story everywhere, keep shareholders attracted/happy at all cost.

Pay the price.

[MCR]

Deceased Maruti HR manager Awanish Kumar Dev had resigned 6 months back - Economic Times

There is defenitely more than what meets the eye! There must have been some internal develpoments after the settlement last year. If we remember there was news of huge amounts of money changing hands to settle the labour un rest.
Whatever it is, its unfortunate that a person lost his life.

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by chncar

Only dyed in the wool communist sympathizers would still try to justify and rationalize their actions.

Originally Posted by chncar

OK. Our apologies then, to all the 400% peaceful and 'model behavior' workers who did nothing wrong. Obviously the management stage-managed the riot, got themselves thrashed within an inch of their life just for fun, and also murdered their colleague just for the heck of it.

I wonder if one of these contract workers had performed self immolation or committed suicide, whether we would have seen the same amount of indignation and ridicule towards MSIL. I can bet anything that none of the media houses would have dedicated more than 5 minutes to the incident. All of us would have tut-tutted and moved on with our lives attributing it to cost of doing business. One thing is for sure, asking for fairness is being nowadays labeled as being communist . In a country like ours, where there is no concept of OSHA or maybe something similar is there but I can bet anything that MSIL has not even heard about it. Something similar happened in Foxconn only there, the workers were jumping off the factory premises to their deaths. Foxconn's solution was to install nets around their factories so that disgruntled workers could be collected and if the damage to them was minimal they could be put back to the assembly line. Now I want that cheap iPhone .

[sourabhzen]

Originally Posted by .sushilkumar

D
Who knows some body from mgmt itself has murdered the GM to settle scores with him & in turn tried to put the blame on workers .

Thats some creative thinking. The postmortem report shows that he was beaten up mercilessly and both of his legs had multiple fractures. That 'somebody' found a secluded place surrounded by the mob, took advantage of situation, beat up the GM, left him to die and nobody noticed this.

Originally Posted by 1100D

Maybe one person died ..... dont we see many instances of innocent lives being lost to other peoples anger?

So where do they take their grievances?

That is exactly what the leaders of the political parties must be thinking. It is just another life lost as workers wanted to take out their grievances of being paid good but not good as others.

[srishiva]

I think the discussions are going haywire. What some people find it wrong is trying to find reasons on why an individual had to die. This is like people trying to find reasons for terrorism.

Even if people sympathetic to worker's cause are generally addressing the worker's problem, it doesn't feel that way since they are replying to disgust being exhibited at the death.

[PhiGolden]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

We only are trying to speculate on the root cause and only think that things cannot be dismissed off using a black and white filter.

We also need to understand the social strata from which these laborers are drawn from and obviously when they see that about 1/3rd of the employees earn almost 2.5 times more than them doing the same work there is bound to be unrest.

While we are at it why don't we speculate the root cause of jack the ripper doing what we did and may be even Kasab. Could be misunderstood fellows.

Every crime has a reason behind it and the reason, whatever may that be does not make the crime any less serious.

I do like your point about 2.5 times salary earned by few folks. We should bring the logic to Bollywood first, some poor guy in bhojpuri film should earn as much as Salman Khan.

Ranji players should be paid the same as Sachin and given the same advertising contracts.

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by PhiGolden

While we are at it why don't we speculate the root cause of jack the ripper doing what we did and may be even Kasab. Could be misunderstood fellows.

I thought Jack the Ripper was mythical. But I have not claimed that those who committed the crime should be let off, have I?

Originally Posted by PhiGolden

Every crime has a reason behind it and the reason, whatever may that be does not make the crime any less serious.

And I fully agree. But I also subscribe to the proverb that prevention is better than a cure. If we create conditions which create less criminals, crimes automatically come down. Hence the rant.

Originally Posted by PhiGolden

I do like your point about 2.5 times salary earned by few folks. We should bring the logic to Bollywood first, some poor guy in bhojpuri film should earn as much as Salman Khan.

Ranji players should be paid the same as Sachin and given the same advertising contracts.

If the Bhojpuri film pulls in magically 100 crores at the BO then would you still make the case that the Bhojpuri hero should be underpaid compared to Salman Khan ? Sure Salman Khan or his fans might not like it. Same goes for Sachin. It is publicly known that the permanent workers and the contract workers have the exact job responsibilities. So if they do the same job or task with an equal amount of skill shouldn't there be a fairness in pay? In fact even the permanent workers were involved in this fracas.

On another note, here is a snapshot of where the Suzuki group stands vis a vis Maruti Suzuki. Its a tad difficult to co-relate as the financial reporting periods differ but from what it looks at least 80% of the profits for Suzuki are generated from MSIL. Remember this doesn't even include the profits made from sale of motorcycles in India. Suzuki is not going to kill the golden goose any time soon. Without MSIL top honchos at the Suzuki headquarters will be administered Samurai justice.