Expressing solidarity with 13 Maruti workers recently convicted by a Haryana court for violence at the company’s Manesar plant in 2012, the RSS-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) has urged the BJP government in the State to “revisit” the case, adding that the company’s management “deserves equal punishment as they were cause of the action”.

The violence had claimed the life of a company executive.

In a statement, BMS General Secretary Virjesh Upadhay appealed to the State government to present the workers’ side in court and look at the management with the “same lens”. The convicted workers “are not criminals” but were only working to earn a living and feed their families, he added.

A Haryana local court recently sentenced 13 workers to life imprisonment and handed out five-year jail terms for four others. Fourteen other workers were fined and released after four-and-a-half years of imprisonment.

Following this, there have been solidarity actions by various trade unions in India and abroad.

“We insist that the State revisit the case impartially by understanding the cause of the problem that the management has been equally responsible for this situation. This incidence has burst out due to repeated instigation and provocation by supervisors and management policies,” said Upadhyay, citing various protests in the plant since 2010, where 50 per cent of the workforce was working on contractual employment and was being given minimum wages in comparison to the permanent workforce that was drawing at least ₹25, 000/month for the same nature of work.

BMS also alleged that many MNCs in the Manesar belt do not respect the right of workers to form a union, adding that in this case, “the State has taken side of the corporate in view of keeping employment sources or just to keep the rankings and invite foreign investment without even thinking of violation of workers fundamental rights at stake”.

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