Maruti to stop using contract labour at Manesar, Gurgaon

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd would stop using contract workers on the shop floor at both its factories by March 2013, a senior executive said, as efforts got under way last week to resolve labour problems that resulted in the death of a manager in a riot last week.

According to SY Siddiqui, Maruti's, chief operating officer for administration, India's largest car maker by sales, would move to using only permanent workers.

The auto maker has a plant in Manesar and a second one in Gurgaon, near Delhi. The company instituted a lockout at the Manesar plant in Haryana state after about 3,000 workers rioted on 18 July.
 
According to Siddiqui around 1,500 permanent workers at the factory, where the riot occurred would not get any pay for the duration of the lockout that began Saturday.

The workers attacked several executives and started a fire that killed Awanish Kumar Dev, general manager of human resources at the plant, and left more than 100 people injured in the violence that followed.

The plant employs a workforce of 1,500 contract workers.

 According to the auto maker's allegation  several workers prevented disciplinary action from being taken against the employee and they went on to block all exit gates, keeping executives and managers on the factory premises.