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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Aug 14

THE hardware components manufacturer, Toroid India's facility at Technopark, has resumed operations after the Chief Executive Officer of Technopark, Mr Rajeev Vasudevan, persuaded the management and striking operators to talk peace and get back to business.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr K.J. Westman, Managing Director, Toroid India, said that his company took into consideration the long-term implications any prolonged labour strife might hold for the reputation of Technopark and the State and had chosen to respond positively to Mr Vasudevan's initiative.

The labour strife was triggered by the management's decision to dismiss two of the company's employees on charges of open defiance of "accepted rules".

While the management was not willing to accede to the employees' demand for withdrawing the punitive action in its entirety, it offered to tone down the same and take back the two employees after a six-month sentence.

During this period, they would not be eligible for payment of wages or any other benefit.

The employees have since accepted the offer and returned to work from 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Mr Westman said."It seems the employees have been testing the waters to see if their collective strength could be used to browbeat the management and overrule the implementation of what the latter thought was a just and valid decision arrived at after extensive consultations," he added.

"I am happy that the management's right to do what it feels is right has been upheld, even if watered down to some extent. Things had come to such a pass that at one point of time we feared we would have had to relocate to another place.''

After protracted rounds of discussions, however, the management has decided to stay put and continue to run its business from Technopark.

Operations came to a grinding halt when employees suddenly struck and resorted to a sit-in at Toroid premises demanding reinstatement of the employees on whom dismissal orders were served.

The company had to request the help of the police to remove the employees, something unprecedented in the history of Technopark.

In his appeal to the management and operators, Mr Vasudevan had said that he had been following the recent developments at the company with concern.

He described as unfortunate the chain of events leading to intervention by police for evicting rebellious operators from the premises.

Mr Vasudevan had also requested the operators to resume work at the earliest and to reassure the management that they will follow company rules in force from time to time.

Besides, he had suggested that the management, as a reconciliatory gesture, tone down the dismissal orders placed to that of suspension extending to no more than six months.

Toroid India is a fully-owned subsidiary of Toroid Hong Kong Ltd which has been set up by expatriate Swedish investors.

The company manufactures toroidal transformers, chokes and related products.

The Toroid group has two major manufacturing facilities in Sri Lanka, in addition to a minor facility in Sweden and sales companies in Germany, the UK, the US, Sweden and Spain.

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