The workers’ struggle at the Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant has, once again, exposed the ugly and exploitative underbelly of liberalised ‘growth’. The intrepid struggle of young workers there is a glaring reminder that in the celebrated industrial enclaves of the national capital region, profit margins are extracted by abuse of contract labour laws, relentlessly exploitative work conditions – and above all by the brute suppression of the basic democratic right to organise and unionise. It is bringing home the fact that the Government of Haryana is treating the workers’ legally mandated right to unionise as disruptive; while it is condoning and even defending the flagrantly illegal lockout by the management! Read the rest of this entry »

Kalpana Wilson  September 2008

More than 3,000 workers, many of them women, employed by Indian car parts manufacturer Pricol in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu are waging a militant and sustained struggle for basic rights and decent wages and conditions, confronting a virulently anti-union corporate employer. Since early 2007 when permanent, ancilliary and contract workers formed a union affiliated to revolutionary left trade union federation AICCTU which the majority of the workforce joined, the Pricol workers have faced victimisation of union activists, violence from the police and management, and daily harassment at work. But their dynamic and determined resistance has galvanised other workers and the entire local community and sent a clear signal to other employers in the area. Last week hundreds of workers blockaded the factory gates for four days in protest at the ‘lockout’ of 171 workers. This succeeded in forcing the management to reduce the number of workers to be locked out and give an undertaking that more workers would not be victimised. However, the basic demands of the Pricol workers are still to be met and the struggle continues. Read the rest of this entry »

ML-Update 28 September 2009

 The tragic death of a senior management representative of auto part manufacturer Pricol in Coimbatore on September 22 has triggered a frenzied reaction from the Pricol management, the Tamil Nadu police and sections of the corporate media. Roy George, Vice President (Human Resources) of Pricol had reportedly suffered head injury in the course of talks with a group of workers on 21 September and succumbed the next afternoon in a city hospital. Read the rest of this entry »

To

M.Karunanidhi

The Chief Minister

Govt. of Tamil Nadu

Chennai

October 1, 2009 Read the rest of this entry »

October 2005

On the bank of a motorway known as Beacon Hill, in the no-man’s land of warehouses, factories and tunnels surrounding Heathrow airport’s Terminal 4 building, about 200 South Asian women and men, mostly in their 40s and 50s– sacked workers of the Gate Gourmet factory – are gathered in the first mass picket in 4 weeks. Read the rest of this entry »