Labour trouble at Bosch shows no sign of ending

Labour troubles at India's automotive factories seem to be unending. Employees at the Bosch plant at Adugodi near Bangalore continued their tools-down strike for the 15th day today after intermediation efforts proved fruitless.

The management of the auto parts maker stated on Tuesday that it was open to an unconditional dialogue to resolve the issues, but maintains that the strike is "illegal and unjustifiable". This was after a fresh round of management-employee talks brokered by the state administration made no headway.

Bosch employees belonging to the erstwhile MICO Employees Association (MEA) were enraged that the Bosch management had specifically targeted them. On Tuesday, they expressed outrage that the plant shut its gates only to MEA workers.

At a press conference on Tuesday, they displayed a copy of the notice which read, ''Taking note of the contents of the MEA letter dated 28.09.11 that workmen will continue their tools down strike till their issues are resolved, it is hereby decided to shut down the plant operations only for workmen of MEA.''

M N Adyanthaya, president of MEA, said, ''They hire workers from Nashik and Jaipur to continue work at the plant. But we (MEA) cannot enter the plant.'' He also said the employees were ready to resume work if the management allowed them to do so.

J N Muniraja, MEA's general secretary, said it is the management that is continuing the strike and not the workers; and claimed the management has violated the memorandum of settlement signed earlier. ''According to the settlement between the management and the association, the provision for ancillarisation and outsourcing was not discussed or approved,'' he said.