By IANS,
Gurgaon : A fortnight-long strike at the Manesar unit of leading automobile maker Maruti Suzuki was called off Friday after a pact among the Haryana government, the company management and the staff union, Deputy Commissioner P.C. Meena said.
Workers at the Manesar plant — that produces some 1,200 vehicles per day on an average — had gone on strike Oct 7, demanding the reinstatement of 44 of their colleagues who had been suspended after an earlier impasse that had ended seven days earlier.
The agitation was called off after the management decided to take back 64 workers, who were suspended during the current and the previous agitations, officials said. It was also decided to retain 1,200 casual workers. Thirty co-workers will remain suspended.
Following the news, the shares of Maruti Suzuki rose nearly 2 percent and were trading at Rs.1,096.10 around an hour after the opening bell with a gain of 1.89 percent. The scrip, however, was still way down from irs 52-week high of Rs.1,599.90.
Following the agreement, workers at Suzuki Powertrain India and Suzuki Motorcycle India — the group companies that produce engines and two-wheelers — also called off their own agitation since Oct 7 in support of the staff at the Manesar unit.
Work at the Manesar unit had started in a truncated manner Tuesday with some 200 casual workers, and those who had not joined the strike. The numbers went up to 600 Thursday with the unit managing to roll out some 200 Swift cars per day.
Due to the strike at in solidarity with their co-workers, production of engines from Suzuki Powertrain India also suffered, as a result of which the output at the Gurgaon unit, not far from the Manesar plant, fell as well. Maruti Suzuki has 8,500 employees.
The Gurgaon unit rolled out 1,797 units Thursday, down from an average of 2,800 units.
A subsidiary of Suzuki Motor Company of Japan, the $8 billion Maruti Suzuki India is India’s largest passenger car producer, offering 14 sub-brands and over 150 variants, including the Maruti 800 small car.
The company has two facilities — at Gurgaon and Manesar — with a collective capacity to produce 1.2 million vehicles annually. With the strike out of the way, it hopes to restart talks to expand it to 1.75 million by 2013 with a unit proposed in Gujarat.