Toyota declares lockout at both Bangalore plants

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd (TKM), the Indian subsidiary of Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp, has declared a lockout at its two manufacturing plants at Bidadi near Bangalore, effective 16 March 2014.

The lockout follows a breakdown in wage negotiations between the company's management and workers' union.

The company's management and union have been negotiating the union's charter of demands for the period FY13-14 for past 10 months. As bipartite agreement could not  be reached, the Karnataka government's labour department conducted seven tri-partite meetings in order to arrive at a settlement.

The company said in a statement, ''The conciliation efforts of the Labor Department have not yet resulted in an agreement,'' it added.

The production at the two plants with a total installed capacity of 3,10,000 units has been disrupted from the last 25 days.

The company said that certain sections of the employees, under the instigation of the union, have ''resorted to deliberate stoppages of the production line, abuse and threatening of supervisors''. This, it added, had been continuously disrupting business for the past 25 days.

''All these unlawful activities have been detailed in the lock-out notice,'' it said, and added the company was left with no other option but to declare a lockout of the premises to ensure the safety of its workers and management personnel.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor is an 89:11 joint venture between the world's largest auto company Toyota and Pune-based Kirloskar Group.

Set up in October 1997, the two plants at Bidadi employ over 6,400 people and have an installed capacity of 3.10 lakh units per annum. Toyota rolled out its first car from the Bangalore unit in December 1999.

The company manufactures multi-purpose vehicle Innova and sports utility vehicle Fortuner, sedans Corolla Altis, Etios, hatchback Etios Liva, and luxury sedans Camry and Camry Hybrid from these plants.