Maruti heads towards total shutdown

Losses at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd ( MSIL) are piling up,thanks to the workers strike which continued to disrupt production at thecountry's largest car makers' plants at Manesar and Gurgaon.

While production at the Manesar plant has completely halted,rolling out of cars at the Gurgaon plant was reduced to a third of its normaldaily output, as the strike entered its fifth day on Tuesday.

"The Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki continues to remaincaptive in the hands of striking workers. No production took place at the planttoday (Tuesday)," MSI said in a statement.

"Production at the company's Gurgaon plant has furthercome down today as there was no supply of diesel engines and also transmissionsfrom Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd (SPIL) due to workers remaining on strike atthe SPIL plant," the firm said.

Workers at SPIL have struck work in support of theirstriking colleagues at Manesar.

The Gurgaon plant produced only 1,800 units on Monday, whichwas further reduced to 1,000 units on Tuesday as against the normal dailyproduction of 2,800 units.

Workers at MSIL's Manesar plant went on a stay-in strike onFriday afternoon that completely hit production at the plant. The number ofworkers who went on strike was around 2,000, including regular, contractual,apprentices and trainees.

The company alleged that the striking workers attacked coworkers,supervisors and executives in multiple incidents of violence and damagedfactory property inside the plant.

The workers, however, denied any such acts and said theywere manhandled by company bouncers.

They have gone on strike, demanding reinstatement of over1,000 casual workers and 44 permanent employees, who were suspended during thestandoff that started on August 29.

This is for the third time when the firm is facing a strikeat its Manesar plant. According to industry estimates, since June this year theseries of strikes has resulted in revenue loss of Rs 1,540 crore for Maruti andan excise revenue loss to the tune of nearly Rs 350 crore for the government.

In the last five months, MSIL has suffered a totalproduction loss of 51,375 units on account of the strike.

With the festive season on, auto component suppliers anddealers are also facing huge losses on account of the strike.

Meanwhile, the Haryana labour department has slapped anotice on the workers for breach of settlement that was signed on October 1 toend the 33- day- long impasse, asking them to respond within 48 hours.

On the other hand, all national trade unions cutting acrossparty lines lashed out at the company management, accusing it of high-handedprovocative activities and said not allowing casual workers to join duty is anabsolute act of vengeance.

They have sought intervention of Haryana chief ministerBhupinder Singh Hooda.

Central trade unions (CTUs) have asked the state and centralgovernments to intervene immediately to settle the issues amicably and restoreindustrial peace.

MSIL's sales in this period also fell by 11.55 per cent to390,878 units from 441,899 units in the same period in 2010.