Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   The Indian Car Scene (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/)

-   -   Strikes in Indian Automobile Companies (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/98577-strikes-indian-automobile-companies.html)

Trouble at Ford and GM with their Indian plants:
Ford, Marimalai Nagar, near Chennai- The 4600 employees at the Marmalai Nagar plant had given a 15 day strike notice on 7/3/2011 for their strike effective 22/03/2011.The demands include recognition of the union, discontinuing the system of leave period treatment of workers, when ever there is a maintenance shutdown and lastly demand for no extra working time to compensate for the 10 minute tea break.
GM, Halol, Gujarat- They say the 9 day strike has resulted in a loss pf production of 700 cars.GM has threatened to fire 250 employees.According to the state government the strike is illegal. The employees are protesting transfer of some employees to dealerships from the plant.They also opposed a long term wage agreement which the management has wanted.
The Halol facility produces premium hatchback Aveo U-Va, entry-level sedan Aveo, mid-sized sedan Optra, premium sedan Cruze and multi-utility vehicle Tavera.Besides Halol, GM India has another plant at Talegaon in Maharashtra with an installed capacity of 1.4 lakh (140,000) units per year. It currently produces compact cars Spark and Beat.

Mahindra also, very recently, suffered a strike at their Nasik plant. Luckily the matter was resolved soon and the plant was shut for only 1 day.

I've seen some labour situations first hand and find it unfortunate that the unions & management are always stuck in the "You versus me" mentality. It's easy to point a finger at the unions who are always asking for higher wages (or, the 2nd most popular : reinstatement of fired workers), but many a time, even the management fails to float worker-friendly policies & job environment (delayed salary hikes, extended work hours without overtime & unreasonable laying off workers before they become permanent come to mind). What really gets my goat though are the politically-motivated unions whose decision makers.......nearly always......walk away with a chunk of cash. Most of them are unreasonable & actually don't care less about worker reforms.

Irrespective, labor problems are a cancer of the auto industry and it's in the best interest of either side to take a step forward & collaborate. It's not only in India; the UAW is equally feared in the States.

Which Indian car manufacturers have the best & worst track record in labour problems?

Good thread Anjan Sir!!!!:thumbs up
Indeed. And in India, such strikes can turn ugly.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sa...-ceo-i/364742/


Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sa...-ceo-i/364742/

Just noticed, the murder of the VP of Pricol happened on the 1st Anniversary of Mr Lalit Choudhary's demise. :Frustrati

Anyway, I see these strikes as a BIG hindrance in the Indian Auto. Industry (any industry for that matter).
Imagine, Peugeot and Fiat India would have been in a better situation, and, hundreds of people wouldn't have lost a lot of time and cash, if it weren't for PAL's labour problems.

I remember once reading a novel about the fictitious story of the emergence and finally the end of a massive strike by the employees' union. The labor unions had demanded imported, air-conditioned cars for the pick up, drop and supermarket errands of the laborers!!:uncontrol

EDIT:
From what I've heard, PAL India?(as I mentioned before)

Thanks GTO and Arkin for the facts.The cold blooded killings need to be condemned outright.

The newly developed industrial areas are identified (usually backward areas) and are offered at concessional terms by state governments to industries. Thats when the mushrooming of several industries start. The situation is largely conducive and poor people, especially locals get employed. Soon union hawks get themselves imported (they visit regularly) from elsewhere in these areas. They unionize and organize the workers by pointing out shortcomings in the management practices.So far so good till the demands are legitimate and just, as GTO has clarified. When there is excessive politicization, the congenial industrial climate is polluted and production is hampered.This is too bad.In many cases industrialists have shied away from opening new industries in affected or problematic areas.

In Japan the workers do protest, but most of the times they increase their working hours by themselves and the management gets jittery. Thats a novel way of protesting rather than resorting to hooliganism and causing physical harm.

Instead..this one minister said something on the lines of, "Look what happens if you dont pay heed to union demands"

Anjan, can anyone forget the brutal murder of Datta Samant (Link to Datta Samant Tribute), due to inter-union rivalries at Pal-Peugeot? There are lots of stories about who was right and who was wrong...all I know is that a man didn't need to die over labour tensions.

Violence in any form, unless physically provoked (in the name of self defence is condemnable.

Some strikes on Indian Auto Company in the team:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...h-gurgaon.html
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...duction-2.html
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/intern...go-strike.html
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...i-india-3.html
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...lol-plant.html

The strike at the Ford plant is bad news especially at a time when Ford is about to announce the New Fiesta launch.

How about the Honda Siel strike in Gurgoan (or was it Noida) where thousands of workers were lathi charged and Honda had almost made up its mind to move the plant. The repurcussions are still felt on the Honda Activa delivieries.

I actually never heard of TATA employees going on strike.

Not surprising, considering that politicians have an active involvement with unions across India.

True GTO those were the Union days!
MPower and theMAG I was reading in a blog that in front of the HMIL plant in Marimalai Nagar, many cars with party flags are parked. That also conveys the same meaning!
ghodlur Noida is an industrially disturbed area now a days.True as you say, the HMSL strike turned violent just a few years ago. Even since Sept 2010 the employees were on a go slow mode, that affected Activa and other bike/scooter deliveries during the festival season. Before September,the Exide employees in their plant at Haryana were also on strike. This affected HMSL among many others a lot and their deliveries were interrupted. HMSL had plans to augment their capacity and build a new plant in the vicinity of the present one in Haryana but they opted for Rajasthan and their new plant will be operational by August 2011 perhaps.
True recent strikes in Tata Motors are unheard of-TOUCHWOOD! But in the mid 1980's the Pimpri plant had lots of union troubles and there was a young and dynamic union leader (Mr Rajan Nair, if I am not wrong). He was killed by some anti socials.
Lets hope Pimpri remains peaceful and so also Tata's other plants.

Aren't these the same companies who have been reporting profit month after month, how is the strike really helping them.

Is this strike ultimately affect the parts suppliers too? How do they respond to this situation. Afterall even they would see their profits affected.:Frustrati

Workers at Maruti Suzuki India’s plant at Manesar in Haryana went on strike on Saturday, resulting in a loss of 600 cars, or 50% of its daily production at the plant. Operations at the company’s Gurgaon plant, however, remained normal. The company said in a statement that the management was talking


to the workers to find a solution to the employees’ demands for recognition of a new union and retention of old contract workers for two new units. Besides, the workers were demanding that no action must be taken against 11 office bearers of the new union.
The management and the workers will resume talks again on Monday though some discussions may take place on Sunday as well.

The Manesar plant, which has around 2,000 employees, rolls out 3,500 cars a year. The company’s two new plants in the same location will produce 2.5 lakh units each per year at an investment of more than Rs 3,600 crore.

The last time the company witnessed a major strike was when workers stopped production for three months from November 2000-January 2001.


Workers' stir at Maruti plant, production hit - Hindustan Times

This is not great news, especially since the car sales are already down. May was a bad month for most car makers, including Maruti. They already have some inventory and ther revised production plan for June, too is already on the lower side.

Also there is the impending semi-annual shutdown in June end for 7-10 days. This does not help Maruti at all. Hope the diesel cars waiting period doesn't get affected much. You are talking 600 customers here!:Shockked:

I believe the strike will not affect the market share of maruti, there must be plenty of inventory to take care of the days lost in strike, Toyota too has cut production by 70% in India due to Tsunami effect. Maybe it is time for shutdown and maitainence time. But if the strike prolongs beyond 15 days it might hurt the topline of the company.

Maruti's market share has been ging down anyway over the past few years. However their saving grace is that the pie itself has become bigger, which is an advantage to the numero uno player.

Meanwhile please note that Toyota has already resumed full scale production 2 weeks+ back. Any production hampered at MSIL Manesar directly affects all their diesel cars most of which still continue to command steep waiting periods.

Maruti's maintenance Shutdown is not due before june end. And to emphasize that their available inventory is not enough, their Manesar and Gurgaon plants will go on shutdown on separate weeks to minimize production loss.