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Maruti talks fail again

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Dec. 14

TALKS between the agitating employees and the management of Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL) have failed yet again on Thursday.

The members of the Maruti Udyog Employees Union (MUEU), who emerged from the meeting at the Udyog Bhawan here, said that it was `status quo' as far as the union was concerned. ``The management continues to maintain its set of stipulations for employees d esirous of returning to work, these conditions are not acceptable to us and so we will continue to stay away from work,'' the union officials said.

After the Minister of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises, Mr Manohar Joshi, called for a tripartite meeting on Wednesday, the MUL management, representatives of the MUEU and officials of the Industry Ministry met here and discussed the demands of the employees.

Among the officials who attended the meeting on Thursday were, Mr Jagdish Khattar, Managing Director of MUL, Mr T. Kobayashi, Joint Managing Director, Mr A.R. Halasyam, Director, Finance, Mr J. Sugimori, Director, Marketing and Sales, MUL. In addition to the office members of the MUEU, the Government officials who were at the meeting include Mr Ravindra Gupta, Secretary, and Mr Pradeep Kumar, Joint Secretary, Heavy Industry.

The MUL management stuck to the stipulation that the union should abide by the earlier mandated four conditions. The conditions include:

I The union will help restore normalcy, productivity and competitiveness at MUL's facilities in Gurgaon,

I It will accept and maintain the incentive scheme notified by the management on October 11,

I The dismissed and terminated employees can appeal under the Standing Order to higher authorities, but will have to be tried under labour laws before any decision can be taken, and

I The union will sign an undertaking on behalf of the workers that they will abide by the certified Standing Orders.

The MUL management said that if these conditions were not acceptable to the union, all the employees would have to sign the Good Conduct Undertaking (GCU) before returning back to work at the plant. The union has not accepted the stipulation of signing t he GCU.

The stalemate between the employees and the management of the country's largest passenger car manufacturer is, thus, set to continue after the failure of Thursday's meeting.