Work to restart at HMSI’s Manesar manufacturing plant this week

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India’s Manesar plant is expected to resume production this week following a settlement between the permanent staff and their employers. However, there has been no agreement between the 2,500 contractual staff who have been on a strike against the sacking of over 300 workers, since November 5.

A report in the Financial Express states that around 300 workers were allowed inside the plant on Monday, who were asked to sign a “good conduct undertaking” before entering the facility. They were the first among four batches of the permanent staff, which totals up to 1,900 members. HMSI has stated that the decision to resume production at the Manesar plant was initiated on November 22 and the remaining workers will be allowed inside the factory over the next three days.

HMSI also stated that all permanent staff have been informed about joining duty between November 25 and November 28 in four batches. Its statement read, “The process of joining back work has started as per schedule and we look forward to normalcy of operation after this process is completed.”

HMSI is among many other companies who were negatively affected in the last six months due to a slowdown in vehicle sales and had to let go of a number of contractual staff. However, the company had a 67 percent year-on-year production cut in March when it produced only 1.77 lakh units compared with the monthly average of nearly five lakh units. This is said to be HMSI’s sharpest reduction since it started operations in 2001-2002.