Bosch reaches settlement with union at Bangalore plant

Bosch Limited, India's largest auto component manufacturer and subsidiary of German engineering conglomerate Robert Bosch GmbH said yesterday that it has reached an amicable settlement with the workers, ending the three-week strike that was bleeding the company Rs4 crore each day.

"The settlement was reached after a long, but fruitful negotiation and we now look forward to reaching normalcy with effect from tomorrow," union president N M Adyanthaya and Bosch senior vice-president Soumitra Battacharya said in a joint statement here on Wednesday.

Workers union at Bosch Bangalore plant has assured the Bosch management of returning production to 100 per cent normalcy from 25 March 2010.

Mico Karmikara Sangha (MKS), the recognised workers union representing 3,500 employees at Bosch's two plants in Karnataka, have been demanding a wage revision hike of 25 per cent in salaries, which amounts to about Rs8,000 per person and substantial improvements in respect of hospitalisation facilities.

Although Bosch did not reveal details of the settlement, according to media reports, the management had agreed to the union demands and has agreed to raise wages by Rs.8,000 per month in CTC (cost-to-company) to the 3,500 workers employed at its main plant in Bangalore.

'The settlement is expected to give a relief to the auto industry, which faced disruption in production due to short time irregularities in the supply of critical components from the Bangalore plant,'' the company said in the statement yesterday.