In a major relief to employees, Royal Enfield has said that from September 30 first shift onwards, all the departments will function at its Oragadam plant.

"Hence, all are requested to attend duty without fail,'' says a company notice to employees.

Earlier, the company had put up a set of conditions for its employees, following the four-day strike by a section of employees that disrupted the plant's operations badly.

The company in a notice to its employees on September 28 said resumption of operations in the Oragadam plant would be announced later, based on readiness of the plant to commence operations. "We may need to start with partial plant operations and subsequently the entire plant," the notice said.

Employees would be allowed to resume work based on a commitment to consistently support plant operations, without creating any disruption in future. There will be a deduction in salary for those employees who participated in the illegal strike in this month's salary as per law.

"Any matter pertaining to our employees will only be discussed with Royal Enfield Collaboration Forum, which is recognised and democratically elected," the notice had said.

"We have been disrupted by the illegal strike, which was called by an unrecognised union in the Oragadam premises for the last four days starting September 24, and hampering the regular operations of the organisation. During this period, we have been running our operations in a restricted manner in Oragadam for the first two days," the notice said.

In response, the union representing the workers who went on strike, shot down the set of conditions put up by the management. "We want status quo as was prevalent before September 24. We will go to work without any precondition, and will not sign any declaration as sought by the management," R Sampath, Vice-President, Working People Trade Union Council and Vice-President of the Royal Enfield Employees’ Union, told BusinessLine , after a meeting with nearly 1,000 employees.

The four-day strike by workers was called off on Thursday night, following an agreement between the employees’ union and the management, which agreed to look at the issues raised by the workers union once they resumed work. "We decided to call off the strike and all workers would report to duty from tomorrow morning,” he said.

The strike began on September 25, with members of the Royal Enfield Employees’ Union, who applied for registration, demanding a settlement on their charter of demands, including a wage increase.

Royal Enfield had invested Rs 150 crore in the Oragadam plant, which has an installed capacity of 1.5 lakh units, to produce the entire range of Royal Enfield motorcycles. Every day, around 750 vehicles are produced at the plant.

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