"THE MANESAR STORY"
Human beings have always been
considered most important factors of production. Since other factors can not speak or react
against the treatment meted out to them by the Management, Government or the
Society, human beings particularly Labour do react if not handled in time and
with required passion and concern. Incident at Maruti – Manesar plant on 18
July 2012 led to brutal killing of Awanish Kumar Dev, Senior HR Manager,
injuries to about 100 Managers, destruction of Company property and total loss
of trust between workers and Management.
There is never single
root cause of such unfortunate incidents and never one single party entirely
responsible. From the class discussion,
I learnt that the main causes of the strike were compared
to Gurgaon, younger worker and supervisor population at Manesar to cut costs, no
shared culture at Manesar as existed in Gurgaon- extreme work focus vs. people
focus, extreme focus of Japanese management on target achievement, poor
understanding of a Union ‘s functioning among the young Associates, break in
communication channels. The associates were unable to surface the issues, no
uniform grievance redressal mechanism for Associates. I
also consider the main cause to be the outdated labour laws alongwith inaction
by the Government inspite of knowledge about violation of law by the Management
regarding casual labour. Present labour
laws are not enough to fulfill aspirations of the labour under fast changing
economic and social conditions. Outdated
laws governing labour have not only affected Maruti but labour unrest at
several other manufacturing units like Rico Auto, HMSI, Sona Steering, Hero
Honda, Bajaj, Denso and several other factories located in Haryana requires
urgent changes in labour laws.
Definitely Management policy of
employing casual workers and not according permanent status to those workers
even after they work for number of years was the single most important reason
leading to the unfortunate incident on 18 July 2012. Further, Government of Haryana choose to
overlook violation of law and continued to appease Management. Even the principles of tripartite
negotiations was given the go by.
Unions take welfare and other
measures for all the workers. Individual
grievances, if considered relevant are also taken up by the Unions. They try to reach a negotiated settlement which
is then implemented by the management.
However, every individual has different aspirations and it is next to
impossible for the management to negotiate with individuals. Union representatives decide more important
issues for general welfare of all the workers and then take up with the Management. This leads to possibility of finding
practical solution. Likewise each
industry and each company has peculiar working conditions and factors. Representatives of external union, although
experiences in negotiations, do not understand those peculiarities and try to
convince Management to follow what is decided in other sectors. This makes negotiations difficult for
management and they they prefer to deal with internal Unions.
Companies which require workers
with basic education level normally have strong internal Union. Encouragement by the Management for dealing
with the internal union also helps in forming strong union with which
Management is comfortable to deal with.
Under these conditions strong internal union avoid outsider influence
and are confident in looking after the interest of their members. Inspite
of this certain companies prefer external union as they have professional
people who possess negotiation skills are unbiased and are aware of prevailing
economic and social conditions of the economy as well as the Industries. They are practical and understand limitations
of the Management. However, internal
union may have representatives who are not educated and lack negotiation
skills. They may not understand
difficulties faced by the company and many times they get swayed by sentiments
and are generally biased because of their own limited experiences. I feel if Union at Maruti – Manesar had
involved more profession people for their negotiations situation would not have
gone out of hand and this unfortunate and undesired incident would not have
taken place.
There is increase in number of
incidents involving Labour and
Management in the recent past. Our
leaders from the industry have probably forgotten that Labour is different
from Building and Machinery and cannot
be ignored if they wish to prosper. We also need to amend outdated laws and
bring them in line with changing economic and social conditions. We can never overemphasize requirement of
proper implementation of laws as there is no logical reason for Haryana Government
to let Maruti continue employing so many casual labour for jobs which were
permanent in nature. Maruti also did not
realize the consequences of their policy till this unfortunate incident and now
have committed to employ permanent employees from the year 2013. If applicable law was implemented earlier
probably Awanish Kumar Deb would have been alive.
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