Hyundai strike called off

Hyundai said the strike by workers at its Chennai plant had been called off with immediate effect and normal production has resumed from Friday. The company will take back 20 out of 75 suspended workers, corporate communications head Rajiv Mitra said.

The CITU-led employee union, which was pressing for recognition, decided to end the 18-day strike after the state labour commissioner held parleys with the union and management on Thursday.

The union was also prevailed upon to buy peace with the management by the ruling DMK's union, Labour Progressive Federation (LPF) led by party's North Chennai MP, C Kuppusamy. He took the initiative for continuing the conciliatory talks between the parties before the labour commissioner.

LPG general secretary, M Shanmugam said, ''We had appealed to the workers and CITU leadership to call off the strike. We explained to them that the Government is not in a position to intervene on the issue in view of the Lok Sabha elections and the operation of code of conduct.''

Employees of Hyundai's factory in Chennai have been on strike demanding recognition of the employee union, formed in 2007.

''There is no possibility of recognising the union. But they have signed an agreement with us and are giving an item-wise reply to our charter of demands. After 18 days of strike, they are taking back all the employees without pre-conditions. All these are other ways of recognition,'' said CITU senior leader A Soundararajan, who was spearheading the strike.

The workers demand charter inlcudes re-instatement of dismissed employees, hiking basic wages and reducing the performance-linked pay component in employee salaries.

Soundararajan added that the management will not sign any wage settlement agreement with the Works Committee, a body which is currently representing the workers till the 20th of May. ''We also demanded that section 10B of Industrial Disputes (TN Amendment) Act but the government said it is not applicable when the code of conduct is on.''