What went wrong at Manesar?

Violence by factory workers is not new to India. Only recently in January workers had lynched the President of Regency Ceramics at Yanam in Puducherry. They were reportedly enraged after their union leader was killed in a police lathi charge at the factory.

In 2009, a Vice-President of the Coimbatore-based auto components manufacturer, Pricol, succumbed to injuries after he was assaulted by a section of agitating workers.

In September 2008, in the course of heated negotiations between a group of laid-off contract workers and the management of the Noida-based Italian firm, Graziano Transmission India, the company’s CEO was killed by a blow to his head.

Savage Violence

But the scale and the cold-bloodedness of the mayhem at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar factory has shocked all. The Manesar plant’s Human Resources General Manager, Awanish Kumar Dev’s body was found charred beyond recognition in a burnt conference room, and was identified by a tooth implant.

The general manager was with union officials to discuss disciplinary matters when he was attacked. According to Haryana police sources, “He had no chance of escape; his attackers broke his legs, so he was trapped inside” and died in the fire set by agitating workers. The post-mortem report stated that he had suffered 100 per cent burn injuries.

“Armed with iron rods and door beams of cars, the mob spread out in groups in the factory area and targeted supervisors, managers and executives ... rendering many of their victims bleeding and unconscious. They also ransacked offices, broke glass panes ... finally, they set the offices on fire,” Maruti said in a statement. A total of 96 injured supervisory/managerial personnel have been hospitalised, out of which 24 are still in hospital with fractures.

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd has delighted customers for the last 29 years. It revolutionised the Indian car market with the launch of its cost-effective, comfortable mass car Maruti 800 in 1983. It was the best-selling car in India until 2004. Over 2.5 million Maruti 800s have been sold since its launch. Later, the company launched several other popular mass cars such as Alto, Swift and Dzire. The company has also kept its shareholders happy with phenomenal growth and profits.

Its shares were issued at Rs 125 each in its initial public offering (IPO) in 2003 and are now quoting 10 times higher. The managerial personnel take pride in working for the company. But, sadly, its workers are a disgruntled lot.

Broader context

Although the immediate trigger for the violence on July 18 was a scuffle between a supervisor and a worker, the real reasons need to be carefully assessed.

The Haryana Government has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the matter. The police have since arrested 99 workers. Only after the conclusion of the police investigation will it be known whether the violence was pre-planned; whether there was any outside influence and if there was any concerted effort to disrupt the company’s or Haryana’s growth.

However, the trade unions blame Maruti’s “high-handedness” in dealing with the workers and a poor working environment for the clash. According to some auto sector analysts, “Part of the problem may also be that Japanese working standards are quite disciplined ... there is a lot of pressure on the worker.”

In an earlier con-call with analysts, the workers claimed that “in a shift of eight hours, we get two breaks of seven minutes each when we have our food too. And bus services to the Manesar factory have been withdrawn. Latecomers are docked half a day’s salary. And we have to roll out a car every 44 seconds … ”

To be fair, the company pays a decent salary of about Rs 18,000 a month to permanent workers. (The casual workers are paid much less, though.) But workers’ aspirations have soared beyond a decent wage. People in villages off the NH-8 highway in Gurgaon have become rich overnight by selling their agricultural land to builders. This drives the aspiration levels of the workers. They want a quick rise in wages, which causes a mismatch between the workers’ aspirations and the management’s responses.

Industry crisis

At a macro-level, the Indian manufacturing sector has lost steam. After posting an average growth rate of 7 per cent in the past 16 years, the sector has considerably slowed down during the past fiscal to a modest growth rate of 3.9 per cent. As a consequence, the corporate sector has resorted to cost-cutting, either trimming the workforce, freezing wages, or delaying wage hikes, leading to economic misery for workers in an inflationary economy.

Workers’ unions also claim that the Maruti management is increasingly resorting to the use of muscle power in the name of security personnel and bouncers at the work place, in its attempt to discipline workers. There have also been instances of use of brutal force by police to break workers’ strikes, as in the case of Honda Motors plant at Gurgaon in 2005, which leave long-lasting scars in the minds of workers.

The violence by workers at Manesar plant is undoubtedly condemnable. To avoid repetition of such incidents, corporate managements and human resource managers need to handle workers’ issues with more sensitivity, compassion and humaneness.

(The author is a finance and management professional.)

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