Maruti to advance plans to regularise contract workers

India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki is all set to advance regularisation of contract workers, reports CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan. The plan to regularise contract workers was for March 2013, but the company is looking to pull forward these plans to sort out its labour troubles once for all.

This plan will not only be implemented at its Manesar plant, but the Gurgaon facility as well. Source say that notices will be sent to the contract workers shortly, after which Maruti will then put it in place an eligibility test, a pre-qualification and a pre-screening process for the applicant. Those contract workers who qualify that process will then be regularised and employed. As far as the production facility is concerned, contract workers will now only be employed for things like gardening, canteen services etc. Now, as far as resumption at Manesar facility is concerned, what we do understand is that the plant is ready but there aren’t any workers. Sources say that a date will finally be announced this week as to when the plant is actually going to be reopened, after which engagement with workers will start in terms of who are the workers who actually want to come back and which are the tainted workers that need to be left out as far as the company is concerned. That process will start once the management makes up its mind as to when the plant will actually reopen. Also, sources say that in the interim the paint and weld shop at the plant in Manesar will be started, and the assembly will take place at the Gurgaon facility. We understand that Gurgaon plant does have additional capacity and can take forward the assembly as an interim measure. That could be one of the options that the Maruti management could consider, but it’s really going to be a wait and watch day by day situation to see how many workers do actually decide to come back to work. The local community is building pressure on workers, saying they need to go back to work. Currently there are 100 plus workers behind bars, so the labour department of Haryana will have to see how they tackle the situation when the union is behind bars. But the biggest impact of the Manesar incident is that Maruti is advancing the regularisation of all of its contract workers well before March 2013.