Swaraj Baggonkar Moneycontrol News
The tool down strike that resulted in a production loss of several thousand models at the Royal Enfield Tamil Nadu plant has been called off but not before senior management at Eicher Motor accused an ‘external leadership’ for the strike.
The 50-day old strike that started on September 24 was called off Monday night following a breakthrough in talks involving the workers, Eicher Motors management and district collector.
Siddhartha Lal, Managing Director and CEO, Eicher Motors said, “We support the formation of a union. In fact, we have an elected committee within our plant. The main principle issue at Oragadam (plant) is that we do not recognize the external political leadership which is at odds with the company’s and employees’ objectives. These are third parties who do not necessarily have the best interest of employees or company in mind often have their axe to grind as well."
Royal Enfield is estimated to have seen a production loss of 35,000 units in the last seven weeks because of the strike. However, the company pegs the loss at 28,000 units. Eicher Motors said in a conference call on Monday that it had lost 25,000 units production by the end of October and 800 units a day in November so far.
The Oragadam plant was operating at sub-optimal level employing temporary workers and a small section of workers who are not members of the unrecognized Royal Enfield Employees Union. About 600 workers refrained from work since the past 50 days.
The strike started just before Royal Enfield was due to commence production of its most powerful and expensive models — Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650 — that are already launched in the US, UK and Europe.
Following the strike, Eicher Motors has revised downwards the production target for the current financial year to below 925,000 from 950,000. Lal added that the company’s management will try to recoup lost production but the year-end output won't be better than 925,000 units.
Last month Royal Enfield sales rose just 1 percent to 70,451 units as against 69,492 units produced in the same month last year. This was much below the 11 percent growth clocked by the company during April-October at 505,914 units.
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