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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Labour troubles back to haunt Hyundai's India operations-Sanjay Vijayakumar

Labour troubles back to haunt Hyundai's India operations-Sanjay Vijayakumar

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published Published on Oct 31, 2012   modified Modified on Oct 31, 2012
-The Economic Times

CHENNAI: Labour troubles are back to haunt Hyundai's India operations, with Leftist labour group Centre of Indian Trade Unions saying at least 300 workers affiliated to it are on an indefinite strike since Tuesday afternoon at the South Korean carmaker's plant in Sriperumbudur, 50 km from Chennai.

But the Hyundai management has sought to play it down, saying in a release that the production disruption was limited to only 78 minutes, or 59 cars, and that normalcy has since been restored.

The claims by the labour group and the counter-claims by the management on this issue didn't tally.

Tuesday's development has been triggered by last week's wage pact that Hyundai, the maker of Santro and i10 cars, signed with a union ( United Union of Hyundai Employees) that it recognises and in which it claims the presence of 1,300 of its over 2,000 permanent employees.

A Hyundai release mentioned how, according to the wage pact that is applicable for three years, the wage increase ranged from Rs 11,000 to Rs 13,000, "excluding components like the variable dearness allowances and other welfare benefits."

But workers backed by the CITU and another rival faction led by Anna Thozhir Sanga Peravai, labour wing of the ruling AIADMK party, have separately spoken out against the wage pact. Both the groups have been seeking recognition as trade unions, something that Hyundai is against.

"The production has come to a halt. We are sitting near the conveyor belt so that no car is processed," said R Sridhar, general secretary of the CITU-affiliated HMIEU. Its grouse is that the management didn't involve them in wage negotiations and also didn't address a long-pending issue of reinstating 27 workers who were fired.

A Soundararajan, who heads CITU in the state, said the strike hadn't ended. What was being presented as the end of the strike, he said, was merely the end of the shift of the striking workers.

Hyundai's release called the disruption in work by a "minority section of the workers" illegal. It also thanked the state administration for helping sort out the matter in "record time."

Anna Thozhir Sanga Peravai didn't participate in Tuesday's strike. Its head R Chinnaswamy, also an AIADMK MLA, said, "I have no clue about the strike and our group is not participating in it."

Chinnaswamy said he wants to get the wage settlement legally quashed. "How can companies take decisions without consulting the unions," he asked.

The latest round of labour troubles comes after a period of relative calm in Hyundai India's factory. India's No 2 carmaker after Maruti, churning out over 6 lakh cars a year, and also the country's largest car exporter, faced labour issues with regularity for some years up to July 2010.

It also comes at a time when its parent in South Korea has just entered a wage pact after facing one of its costliest strikes, which stopped Hyundai from making more than 82,000 cars worth nearly $1.5 billion. 

The Economic Times, 30 October, 2012, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/auto/automobiles/labour-troubles-back-to-haunt-hyundais-india-operations/articleshow/17023737.cms


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