Toyota declares lockout at Bangalore units amid labour woes

Toyota Kirloskar Motor on Sunday declared a lockout at its two manufacturing plants at Bidadi near Bangalore, following the failure of talks between the management and the union over wage negotiations.

The production at the two plants, having an installed capacity of 3,10,000 units, has been disrupted for the past 25 days. “The management and the union have been discussing the charter of demands for the period FY14 for the past 10 months. As a bipartite agreement was not reached, the Karnataka labour department has conducted seven tripartite meetings to reach a settlement. But the conciliation efforts have not yet resulted in an agreement, leading to the lockout,” the Japanese auto firm said in a statement.

The statement also said even as the talks were on, a section of the workers, instigated by the union, had resorted to deliberate stoppage of the production line, and threatened supervisors and disrupted business for the past 25 days.

“In this background, the company is left with no other option but to declare a lockout to ensure the safety of its workers and management personnel,” the statement concluded.

The workers’ union, however, could not be contacted.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor is a 89:11 joint venture between the world’s largest auto company Toyota Motor Corp. and the Pune-based Kirloskar Group, respectively.

Set up in October 1997, the two plants at Bidadi employ over 6,400 people and have an installed capacity of 310,000 units per annum. The plant rolled out the first car in December 1999. While the first facility has an installed capacity of 1,00,000 units, the second plant has an installed capacity of 210,000 units.

The two plants are set up on a 432 acre land parcel in the Bangalore suburb.The company has been manufacturing the multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) segment leader Innova and the sport utility vehicle (SUV) Fortuner, from the first plant since October 1999, while it has also been rolling out the sedans Corolla Altis and Etios, the hatchback Etios Liva and luxury sedans Camry and the Camry Hybrid from the second plant since December 2010.

The company also sells the premium SUV brands Prado, Land Cruiser and the hybrid sedan Prius as completely built units.