GURGAON MANESAR BELT INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE

ORIGIN:

About 80,000 workers from 60-odd companies in this industrial hub stayed away
from work Tuesday to protest the death of a worker in an automobile firm here.

Work was affected in many companies in the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt as workers did
not turn up Tuesday morning. They supported the strike called by All India Trade Union
Congress (AITUC).
Around 80,000 workers from around 60 companies have joined the strike. The workers are
holding sit-in protests outside their companies demanding action against RICO management
for the death of the worker.
RICO, an auto-parts manufacturing unit, has been seeing labour unrest for the past one
month. Late Sunday, a clash broke out in the factory between workers who were on strike and
those who wanted to get back to work. The situation spun out of control and left one worker
dead and several others injured.
The workers will sit together after Tuesday’s strike to decide the future course of action.
RICO workers have a right to form trade union but the management is not ready for it. The
workers have been deprived of their right to form a trade union and we will not let this
happen, says secretary Sachdev.
The district administration had Monday constituted a four-member committee, under the
chairmanship of Additional Deputy Commissioner Pushpender Chouhan, to resolve the
dispute between the factory management and labour union.
Work in several companies including Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI),
Microtech, component makers Lumax, Sunbeam and Caparo Maruti has been affected.
The workers were involved in violence and they damaged company property and attacked
senior employees of the company.
IMPACT:
Over 70 factories disrupted by labour unrest in RICO plant. Over 100,000 workers in more
than 70 auto factories, including some of India’s largest automobile companies such as
Munjal-promoted Hero Honda and Honda Motorcycle and Scooters India Ltd (HMSI), joined
a one-day strike, impacting production in the country’s largest auto hub.

The strike was called to protest against the management for the death of 26-year-old worker
Ajit Kumar in component maker RICO Auto on October 18 after sustaining an injury during
a clash between two groups of company employees.
The agitation was also marked by violence, with a RICO Auto official beaten by workers
after the management declined to withdraw cases against 16 workers for earlier misconduct.
 GURGAON MANESAR BELT INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE

Companies have been hiring armed guards to browbeat workers. Most managements in the
area are trying to play down today’s incident, broadly viewing it as another attempt by Aituc
to spread its influence in the Gurgaon-Manesar-Bawal auto hub in Haryana, which accounts
for 60 per cent of the country’s auto production and employs about one million workers.

After a day long strike by workers' unions, normalcy returned to the Gurgaon-Manesar-
Bawal industrial belt in Haryana today with employees of various companies reporting back
for duty.

Only Rico Auto Industries, whose Gurgaon plant was the epicentre of the strike after the
death a worker in a group clash on Sunday, continued to be under lock-out.

"Workers are now back at their duty in all places, barring Rico Auto where there is a lock-
out," All India Trade Union Congress Gurgaon District Secretary Suresh Gaud said.

He said a delegation of workers' unions is going to meet the Additional District Collector
during the day to resolve the labour dispute at Rico Auto, which led to the initial flare up.