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Indian police 'start evicting' Maruti strikers
Agence France Presse - October 14, 2011
Some 1,500 workers seized control last Friday of the Manesar plant in northern India belonging to Japanese-controlled Maruti Suzuki, which sells nearly one out of every two cars in the country.
"The police have started efforts to enforce Thursday's court order – they are asking them to leave peacefully," a Maruti spokesman, who asked not to be named in line with company policy, told AFP. "But the workers are still very much in control of the plant, they're still holed up there," he said.
Tensions have been high at the plant since June with work stoppages costing Maruti at least 17.50 billion rupees ($356.5 million) in total lost output, the company spokesman said.
Maruti is 54 percent owned by Suzuki Motor Corp and India is critical to the Japanese firm's fortunes as the country is its biggest foreign market.
"There are about 2,500 police at the plant gates," Naveen, a union vice-president, who uses one name, told AFP. "We're not going to respond with violence."
Six years ago, a protest in the same region at Honda Motorcycle, owned by Japan's Honda Motor, led to clashes with police that resulted in at least 100 workers being injured.
Production at Maruti's second plant in Gurgaon, just outside the national capital, was totally halted on Friday by the strike due to parts shortages caused by sympathy strikes at other Suzuki-owned facilities.
"Maruti is not producing any cars at the moment. We don't know when we will be able to restart production," the Maruti spokesman said.
The latest confrontation at the Manesar plant began just days after staff returned to work following a 33-day lockout imposed when Maruti accused the workers of sabotaging assembly line production.
The company has accused strike leaders of reneging on a settlement reached on October 1 in which they signed a pledge not to disrupt production.
The union, in turn, has accused Maruti of going back on an October 1 pact by refusing to recall 1,200 contract workers, withdrawing transport facilities and deducting double the amount of wages than agreed for the time on strike.
The continued confrontation sent Maruti's shares tumbling more than three percent to a year's low of 1,022.90 rupees.
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