Here is what a Maruti Suzuki worker says, his average day at the Manesar plant is like. You catch a bus at 5 am for the factory. Arriving a second late to punch in your card means a pay cut, but you can’t leave the premises once you’ve entered. At 6.30 am, you exercise and supervisors give you feedback on your previous output. Start work at 7 sharp. Everyone does his one task — assembling, welding, fixing — for a minimum of 8 continuous hours. A car rolls off the line every 38 seconds, which means you can’t budge from your position, ever. You get two breathless breaks during the day. At 9 am, a 7-minute break to drink tea or go to the loo, or both. After a while you might, like many of your friends here, end up taking your hot tea and kachori to the bathroom with you. Then a lunch break of 30 minutes, in which you walk about a half kilometre to the canteen, wait in line with everyone, eat and walk back. Returning even a minute late from any break, or leaving the assembly line for any reason even for a minute, means half a day’s pay cut. Older systems used to include an overseer for every small group of workers who could step in if someone needed to take a breather. But, the cost logic of production is perennially at odds with workers’ rights.
it’s likely we think of a Rs 16,000 factory job with a uniform as clean and comfortable. But even the salary is an illusion, as the workers’ salary slips show. A baseline of Rs 8,000 is all most are guaranteed. Take a day from your legally granted casual leave or sick leave, for any reason, and lose Rs 1,500. Take two and lose Rs 3,000, and so on up till half your salary disappears. When TEHELKA emailed Maruti Suzuki asking about conditions like break durations and pay cuts, their official spokesperson responded: “If attendance is below a certain level, performance incentive is less to that extent. The terms and conditions of all workers, including duration of breaks, are uniform for employees in Gurgaon and Manesar.”
IN DECEMBER 2010, the Manesar workers began discussing how to field their own candidates for a new union instead of being folded into the Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU), the only recognised company union. MUKU is viewed as a management- controlled union mainly for the Gurgaon plant workers, whose spirits were crushed during their own agitations in 2000. MUKU has traditionally not held elections. Workers know that the time-honoured management tactic is to fire their leaders. Since December, the Manesar workers and management have played a game of hide and seek.
it’s likely we think of a Rs 16,000 factory job with a uniform as clean and comfortable. But even the salary is an illusion, as the workers’ salary slips show. A baseline of Rs 8,000 is all most are guaranteed. Take a day from your legally granted casual leave or sick leave, for any reason, and lose Rs 1,500. Take two and lose Rs 3,000, and so on up till half your salary disappears. When TEHELKA emailed Maruti Suzuki asking about conditions like break durations and pay cuts, their official spokesperson responded: “If attendance is below a certain level, performance incentive is less to that extent. The terms and conditions of all workers, including duration of breaks, are uniform for employees in Gurgaon and Manesar.”
IN DECEMBER 2010, the Manesar workers began discussing how to field their own candidates for a new union instead of being folded into the Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU), the only recognised company union. MUKU is viewed as a management- controlled union mainly for the Gurgaon plant workers, whose spirits were crushed during their own agitations in 2000. MUKU has traditionally not held elections. Workers know that the time-honoured management tactic is to fire their leaders. Since December, the Manesar workers and management have played a game of hide and seek.
On 3 June, the Manesar workers formally applied to form a separate union called Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU). They say the company responded by suspending 11 workers and sending bouncers to force them to sign blank pieces of paper. The workers struck work on 4 June and held a sit-in inside the plant for 13 days till their 11 colleagues were reinstated, though the main issue of unionisation remained unresolved. They allege the management next resorted to things like putting cockroaches and dead flies in their canteen food — fact or angry rhetoric, there’s little way of verifying.
Meanwhile, the file to register MSEU in the labour office was cancelled. Reasons: the employees resorted to an illegal strike; among those who’d signed for a new union, many still retained MUKU membership; some signatures didn’t match with the registered ones. The revolting workers say they’d all resigned from the old union and these technical reasons merely indicate how hand-in-glove the Haryana government is with Maruti Suzuki.
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