The Hindu Business Line : Apollo declares lockout in Kalamassery unit

The company, formerly Premier Tyres Ltd, is under lease to Apollo Tyres Ltd (ATL). “In spite of repeated requests to the unions, the violent and illegal acts, and obstruction and intimidating tactics are being continued by the workers.”

And hence, the management was “left with no alternative but to declare lockout”, company sources said.

A senior ATL management source told Business Line on Saturday that consequent to the economic recession, the demand for tyres has fallen sharply by 40 per cent from September last.

The Rs 12,000-crore tyre market in the country has been squeezed now to Rs 8,000 crore, and therefore, the management has been compelled to do some adjustments to reduce production cost.

All the tyre manufacturing units in the country, including the mother plant of the ATL at Perambra in Kerala’s Thrissur district, have already resorted to such measures.

Therefore, he said, they wanted to introduce some adjustments in the Kalamassery unit, which is a high-cost centre in terms of production cost. The management wanted it to be run for six days a week instead of seven, which was not acceptable to the workers.

Besides, the efforts of the management so far to improve and utilise the machines to its optimum capacity have also failed, he said.

“Wilful default on the part of the workmen has resulted in a production loss of two tonnes of tyres daily”, management sources said. The workmen violating the terms of the long-term settlement went on partial strike — initially in two to three sections and then spread it to all sections leading to stoppage of despatches, he said.

“We are now trying to reinstate security”, for which a request has been sent to the Kochi City Police Commissioner, he said.

The management, in its letter to the Commissioner, said there were stock of highly inflammable materials such as LPG, naphtha, diesel and furnace oil stored in tanks and workmen alleged to have threatened to set fire to the installations and factory.

He said the management was trying to seek the intervention of the State Labour Minister for convening a meeting of all concerned with the Labour Commissioner to resolve the crisis. Trade Union leaders were not available for comments.

The current economic recession, however, will not have any impact on the Apollo’s ongoing trucks and passenger car radial tyre manufacturing project in Tamil Nadu, he said adding it would become operational as scheduled in December 2009.

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