The employees association of Bosch Ltd, which shut down its Bangalore plant today after its employees declared a “tools down” strike, said the management has gone back on several issues.
“We had a meeting last week and told the management not to go ahead with ancillarisation and we even have a written settlement signed before the Labour Commissioner on this; but they did it anyway,” Mr Raghavendra, executive committee member of the Mico Employees Association (MEA), told Business Line .
However, in a press statement issued on Thursday, Bosch had said that the decision to outsource was taken after monthly meetings with its labour union.
According to Mr Raghavendra, the Labour Commissioner had called for a meeting with the company management and the MEA this morning to discuss the issue, but the Bosch management did not attend the meeting.
The MEA and the Bosch management had signed an agreement before the Labour Commissioner of Karnataka agreeing on the issue of not sub-contracting functions, according to Mr Raghavendra. The settlement was to be in effect till December 31, 2012, he said.
Employees say that without their knowledge, seven machines from the pump housing department were taken away from the Bosch facility on Sunday, and given away to sub-contractors. “We discovered this on Monday, called for a union meeting, and started the tool down strike on Wednesday,” Mr C. Hanumantha, Vice-President of the MEA, said.
Employees also claim that after the official shutdown, several women from the administrative departments and several trainees were put on jobs at the shop-floor, which is also against the agreement signed between the management and the MEA.
“Several issues were discussed and several plans dropped as part of this settlement, and outsourcing was one of the issues dropped during the discussions,” Mr Raghavendra said. If they bring up issues that were dropped, we will too, and we will protest on several issues, he said.
“What we're protesting is not merely against the change of jobs and the possible loss of wages, but against the disrespect shown to the official document,” an employee said.