By IANS
Pune : As many as 1,400 workers of the Akurdi plant of leading two-wheeler manufacturer Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL) Sunday unanimously decided to stick to their demand to re-start their factory.
The workers, however, expressed satisfaction at the way the BAL management had responded to their demands so far.
The company closed down the plant at Akurdi, near here, on Sep 1, rendering the workers jobless.
The management and the workers’ union have been in talks about the future of the unit.
The workers want the management to renew an agreement, which ended in February 2007, wherein the latter had recommended a work schedule of 480 minutes or eight hours a day. Earlier the workers had been on 470 minutes per day schedule.
Vijay Shelare, the Pune unit president of the BAL workers’ union affiliated to Bharatiya Kamdar Sena (BKS), told IANS: “The workers are overall happy with the management. If the management first accepts (the demand to renew) the agreement then we will have the confidence that the talks are moving in right direction.”
Shelare said the workers’ representatives will meet the BAL management sometime Tuesday or Wednesday.
The two sides met in Mumbai Sep 8, but the workers rejected the management’s proposals.
BAL chairman Rahul Bajaj and his son, managing director Rajiv Bajaj had given three options to the workers.
First, any worker wanting to continue to work with BAL would be employed with BAL’s dealers. Second, workers’ children who are diploma holders would be employed at the Chakan plant near Pune. Last, the management offered a voluntary retirement scheme.
Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Labour Minister Ganesh Naik were also present at the meeting.
Most of the workers live in Pawar’s constituency of Baramati, and he has been acting as a mediator in the talks.