CB BureauFrom 10 August 2013, the retrenched workers of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL), at the plant located at Manesar in the state of Haryana, India, are all set to renew and reinforce their struggle to uphold their democratic rights to organise and protest. As part of their action for justice, they have submitted a letter to various district officials – including district commissioner, Gurgaon; police commissioner, Gurgaon; chief secretary, Haryana; chairman of Gurgaon Municipal Corporation; and managing director of Maruti Suzuki India – seeking permission to organise sit-ins and demonstrations around 200 metres away from the Maruti factory in Manesar, or at an alternative site at Raheja Square, Manesar.
“We are yet to receive a reply from the administration,†says Rajpal, a leader of Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU). “They might not grant us permission since the laws in Manesar are still barbaric. There is no value for the democratic rights of workers,†he adds.
Rajpal’s comment is substantiated by the fact that the workers were denied permission to take out a peaceful rally on 18 July 2013 at Manesar. Last year, the same day a clash between the workers and the employers led to the death of MSIL’s general manager for HR, Awanish Kumar Dev, and subsequently the arrest of 147 workers. The company retrenched 546 permanent workers and 1,800 contract workers in July.
To commemorate one year of continued struggle against the non-stop repression as well as to recollect the brutal incident that took place last year, the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) – with support from various automobile workers’ unions, central trade unions, independent unions and students’ federations – had decided to take out a rally at Manesar. Keeping to the letter of the law, a letter seeking permission for organising the rally was given to all authorities concerned.
Peaceful rally – so what?
On the morning of 18 July 2013, the workers who had assembled at Leisure Valley Park in Gurgaon in order to march to IMT Manesar were stopped at the site by the heavy deployment of police. District Magistrate Shekhar Vidyarthi imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) (this section empowers a magistrate to prohibit an assembly of more than 10 people in an area) in the entire industrial belt of IMT Manesar, including the adjacent areas like Tau Devilal Park, National Highway 8 and the mini secretariat in Gurgaon. Hundreds of police personnel were present armed with weapons, lathis, water cannons and tear-gas vehicles, creating a threatening atmosphere in the entire industrial belt.
“Don’t the workers have any right to take out rallies to air their views or protests?†asks Mr Nayan Jyothi of Krantikari Nowjawan Sabha, an organisation of youth. “There is no democratic functioning. Not even a single rally demonstration is allowed in Manesar. Even the members of Honda Motorcycle India Ltd Workers’ Union, who observe 25 July of every year as a day to commemorate the brutal lathicharge on them in 2005, were not allowed to do so. Isn’t it undemocratic? Are we not supposed to protest this?†he questions.
Undemocratic authorities
The arrested 147 workers have been languishing in Gurgaon Central Jail since 18 July 2012. Not a single one of them have been granted bail either in the lower court or in the high court. The latter rejected the bail plea on 22 May 2013. The chargesheet filed by the Haryana police in the court has no name of any witness, and so is incomplete. Those workers inside the jail are neither being granted bail nor being let out on parole. An appeal sent out by the workers in jail clearly states that in spite of repeated appeals to almost all administrative officials and elected representatives, including the chief minister of Haryana and the prime minister of India, no action has been taken in their favour. According to MSWU members, requests for parole on family emergency were denied outright by the authorities. Sumit, a jailed worker, who requested for bail or parole to be with his lonely wife during delivery of their baby, was one of the rejected applicants. She delivered in a Gurgaon hospital on 6 December 2012, without any family members to take care of her. Somewhat similar was the case of Vijendra, whose sick mother was forced to accompany his wife for delivery on 10 January 2013, in a hospital in Jhajjar, Haryana. Prempal, who lost his mother and two-year-old daughter, was allowed only an hour’s parole to light the funeral pyre.
The workers outside, those active in the union, are being picked up by the police on and off, without being given any reason. Imaan Khan, who was a member of Provisional Working Committee of MSWU and whose name was not there in the FIR, charge sheet or SIT report, was arrested and jailed in January 2013. “Instances of such arrests are quite common,†claims Sunil, a Maruti employee. Around 11 workers and activists arrested so far are in Kaithal jail.
As pointed out by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) in their investigative report ‘Driving Force: Labour Struggles and Violation of Rights in Maruti Suzuki India Limited’, the denial of constitutional rights has been part of this structural violence in MSIL since long. In the 2000-01 struggle at the Gurgaon unit and in September 2011 at the Manesar unit, the management had made signing of a ‘good conduct’ undertaking a precondition for the workers to enter the factory premises. This process, in a way, effectively took away the right of the workers to go on a legal strike, a right guaranteed by the Industrial Disputes Act (IDA 25T, 25U read with the Fifth Schedule). Besides, it also led to unfair labour practice as defined by Section 8, Fifth Schedule, IDA. The nexus between the state and the company can be gauged from the fact that though the union labour minister stated in parliament on 28 November 2012 that “demanding of ‘good conduct’ bonds from workers as a condition before allowing them to resume work is an arbitrary act and it also amounts to unfair labour practice as per IDA,†he actually took no step to stop this being done in Maruti.
Strike action: An update
On 8 May, in Kaithal a solidarity assembly of more than 2,000 people took place and they later submitted a memorandum giving 10 days’ notice to the government of Haryana to heed to the demands of the workers. On 1 June 2013, the workers took out a rally through Kaithal town to the district commissioner’s office. A sit-in of workers, their relatives and activists began on 24 March and continued for 57 days. On 19 May 2013, the protestors were brutally lathicharged by the police force.
Prior to that, on 28 March 2013, workers began a fast-unto-death. Hundreds of people represented by various unions and peoples’ groups marched on 1 April to the deputy commissioner’s office at Kaithal to reiterate the demands of the fasting workers. However, the DC flatly refused to come out and meet the people. The fast was temporarily withdrawn after an assurance by Chief Minister Bhupiner Hooda that the government would look favourably into their demands and restart negotiation with the company.
In solidarity
Expressing solidarity with the workers of Maruti, on 13 July in New Delhi, under the banner ‘Justice for Maruti Workers’ Campaign’, over 400 people from all sections of society (including writers, artists, lawyers, journalists, teachers and students of various universities, trade unionists and social and political activists) gathered to stand in solidarity with the struggle and current demands of the MSWU. Later, in a press meet, Booker Prize winner and social activist Arundhati Roy said that the â€struggle of the workers of Maruti Suzuki Manesar and the emergent and erupting struggle of the working class in areas near Delhi”NCR show a new terrain of struggle emergent in the urban areas.†Noted scholar and journalist Praful Bidwai expressed his solidarity with the ongoing struggle against the criminal nexus in the form of “Maruti”Manesar police†and the frequent use of goons by this nexus to crush all legitimate union activities. In a strong message of solidarity, Aruna Roy of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) stated, “If dissent and protest are being branded as criminal activities, a fair trial is denied, and there is administrative collusion with the management, the process deliberately derails the role of law which it professes to uphold. The Maruti workers as both citizens and labourers of this democratic country have a right to collectively organise and protest. A denial of this right is a violation of basic constitutional guarantees.†Karamat Ali, representing the Pakistan Chapter of the South Asian Labour Forum (SALF), demanded immediate release of the Maruti Suzuki workers in India, as well as withdrawal of all cases lodged against them by the administration.
The campaign for supporting the Maruti workers languishing in jail as well as those retrenched is gaining momentum across the country. The first demand pertains to the release of arrested workers and reinstatement of terminated workers of Maruti Suzuki Manesar, in addition to addressing the condition of other workers facing exploitation and repression in their factories. “What we demand is a judicial enquiry by a committee appointed by Supreme Court, immediate release of the 147 jailed workers, and reinstatement of 546 regular workers and 1,800 contract workers,†asserts Rajpal, leader of MSWU. “We shall continue with our struggle systematically, till we get justice,†he adds.
MSIL, the multinational giant, in order to compete with other companies is indulging in certain unfair practices to reduce production costs and maximise profits. The workers are exploited to the core, the motive being to extract maximum work from them. This is quite visible if one analyses its production capability vis-à -vis the targets set. As per the annual report of MSIL for the year 2011-12, the production capability of the company is 1.55 million units per annum when its installed capacity is only 1.26 million units. What does it translate into…? To be sure, nothing other than a ceaseless, incessantly moving, high-speed assembly line, where workers are forced to work faster than machines.
The story was first published in Labour File.