[MDED]

7 months after thousands of workers were terminated following unrest at Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India's two-wheeler manufacturing unit in Tapukara, Rajasthan the agitation and protests have reached Delhi, with the workers seeking the Union Labour Ministry's intervention.

Details here :

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...cle9128802.ece

[girimajiananth]

Why were they terminated in the first place ?

[khoj]

IIRC, the General Manager HR of the plant was beaten to death and that resulted in enmasse terminations.

[Funny]

Originally Posted by khoj

IIRC, the General Manager HR of the plant was beaten to death and that resulted in enmasse terminations.

I think you are referring to Maruti's Manesar plant incident in which the GM (HR) was beaten and burnt to death which led to mass arrests and subsequent terminations.
P.S. I maybe wrong here.

[aargee]

Rioting & arrest - Yes

the HMSI workers have been trying to register a union, without success, since August 2015; and last, four permanent workers, who were also union office-bearers, were dismissed by the Honda management in early February...

Honda workers claim that their troubles began on August 6, 2015 when they set the ball rolling for registering a trade union. “That’s when the company began to harass us, forcing us to do overtime on consecutive days, and penalising those who refused,” says Ahmed, a permanent worker from HMSI’s Tapukara plant. “Recently they terminated four permanent workers and close to 800 contract workers for their involvement in union activity.

Source - http://www.thehindu.com/business/Ind...cle8292618.ece

[drsingh]

Our institutions (Judiciary, social security) are ineffective. This is bound to happen as our economy grows and becomes more linked to the international monetary system.On top of that ill informed/misinformed workers/officials/regulatory bodies/opportunistic politicians/opportunistic union officials are going to create all kinds of aggravated parties.

This is /has been a socialist country and capitalism is being forced down its throat without the proper institutions/redressal mechanisms in place.

And the people in charge don't have an idea about what to do.All they are doing is putting out fires.

It is going to be a bumpy ride to prosperity for sure.

[khoj]

it seems I have indeed mixed up the two incidents and the unfortunate episode did take place at Maruti's facility and not at HMSI.

Originally Posted by Funny

I think you are referring to Maruti's Manesar plant incident in which the GM (HR) was beaten and burnt to death which led to mass arrests and subsequent terminations.
P.S. I maybe wrong here.

[basuroy]

At the root of it all is contract worker system . Private sector as well as Public sector (yes the government ) now employee over 40% contract workers who are at best paid half the wage for the same work in direct violation of multiple laws and supreme court directives , often as low as 1/20th as per a livemint article recently .
11% are employed in formal sector , 89% in informal sector without social security. Just 1,5 lakh formal jobs created in entire 2015 as per labour ministry- lowest since 1991 and even few years back , the figure was around 8 lakh.

This is inevitable what is happening . The largest labour strike in last 25 years happened few weeks back ,we have multiple caste groups aggressively rioting for jobs and what not - that the economy is in dire condition is no secret either with government shrinking instead of expanding as expected with population rise . We are a disaster waiting to happen , we take our democratic(albeit flawed ) way of life for granted in a subcontinent where you won't find one nation that hasn't had its tryst with social breakdown , dictatorship and what not . That demographic dividend always touted as boon for the nation may just prove to be its undoing .

Recently there was this incident in Kolkata where rioters walked in unopposed into an upper middle class gated society and banged up 80 cars - the sociological diagnosis of such incidents are not nice .

T. Piketty is spot on when he says Indian income inequality is severe , we calculate our GINI coefficient based on consumption which is a flawed method , calculated by real income (that is accounting for black money) , it is so bad that it beggars belief.

[GTO]

Looks like the hunger pangs were irresistible. Now, and uniquely, they've decided to take turns at fasting (whatever that means).

After the five sacked Honda workers sitting on hunger strike since September 19 at Jantar Mantar in the national capital took dangerously ill, the workers took a decision to sit on hunger strike by turns.

The five who have been on strike for 20 days had fruit juice on Saturday, as a fresh lot of five workers began their hunger strike.

Source + Full Article

[desdemona]

Fasting and hunger-striking etc has lost all/any rhetorical purchase, let alone moral 'force' etc. Cynicism-s reign. The workers would've been better served 'staging' rampaging indignant 'violence'-thetare a la so-many-political-parties do (from time to contextual tactical+strategic time): media and social-media stunts.

Even that would've fizzled out pretty soon, in which case another would've been 'needed' to secure the attentions let alone cares of the blase-overloaded 'public'/judiciary/whoever-in-government.

Such 'causes' are always defeated/tired-out/bought-out/dissipated, since their scale is too small/microscopic/particularistic (THE collective action problem, chicken-or-egg situation) and since it does not affect or effect the 'middle class publics' in any, even-imagined or -sympathetic or -theatrical, way?

[greenhorn]

I recall reading a while back on another thread that labour relations at honda was much better than hero honda due to the Japanese management practices. Wonder what happened then despite all that