report writing on staff on strike
Answers
From 4th to 17th of June 2011 around 2,000 young workers engaged in a wildcat sit-down strike at Maruti Suzuki factory in Manesar [1]. With the following text we hope to contribute to the necessary debate about this important strike and invite friends and comrades, particularly in Delhi area, to share their experiences and views. Before we go into chronological details of the strike we try to provide a rough political summary.
It was an important strike in local terms. The two Maruti assembly plants coordinate hundreds of local supplying factories [2], the Manesar plant dominates a new industrial area of major importance. There has been silence at Maruti Suzuki for more than a decade: the workers in Gurgaon plant have been silenced by the lock-out in 2000/01 [3], and they did not join the strike in June. The Manesar plant was opened in 2006/07, but the young and casualised work-force had not found their voice as yet.
It was a hard strike. The workers gave no notice to management, they stopped production completely and around 2,000 workers stayed inside the factory for nearly two weeks. The strike ‘postponed’ the production of 13,200 cars and caused a loss of about 6 billion Rs. (133 million USD / 100 million Euro). Maruti Suzuki’s June sales figures dropped by 23 per cent, the sharpest fall in two and a half years. In July management announced to shift one production-line back from Manesar to Gurgaon plant. Workers continued the strike despite the police stationed within the factory premises and despite strike having been officially declared illegal by Haryana government on 10th of June.
Management and state did not dare to attack the workers inside the factory – a lot of workers’ struggles in the area had been attacked physically once workers left the factory. This is partly due to the management’s fear that plant and machinery could be damaged during the course of a police intervention, but mainly due to a fear of the state that – in the current local and global social situation – repression could cause unpredictable trigger effects. While state and management did not know how to deal with the situation, the main unions repeatedly emphasised, that ‘the workers are victimised’, that the workers, and not the company, are in a difficult spot.
Despite the young workers’ courage and the fact that the company was hit at times of full-capacity the strike ended in a defeat for the mass of workers: they did not enforce any betterment of conditions and wages, which was their main concern. Instead the agreement included a ‘punishment wage cut’ of two days’ wages per day of strike – something rarely seen in industrial relations in India. Another element of the agreement states that the 11 workers (union leaders) sacked during the strike were taken back, though they have to undergo an ‘inquiry’. We are not able to say whether workers at large felt demoralised after the strike, but we can imagine it.
hope it helps u
I don't know please help me I don't understand because English is very hard so plz help me