The employees union and the management of Foxconn met the Assistant Commissioner of Labour at Kancheepuram on Thursday over the company’s decision to suspend operations at its Sriperumbudur plant from December 24. But no decision was taken, and the fate of 1,700 employees is at stake.
The management informed the Labour Department that it would run the shifts till Saturday, and thereafter, a holiday would be declared with pay, sources said.
However, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the Labour Progressive Federation (LPF) argued that declaring a holiday with pay was an indirect way of closing the plant. They also urged the company to consider alternatives and sought government intervention.
“Foxconn is a company with global presence and employs over two lakh workers across 85 countries. This is not a case like Nokia, in which the firm had exited the phone business and could not sell its plant to Microsoft owing to tax issues. We won’t allow the Foxconn plant to be closed,” said A. Soundararajan, State general secretary of the CITU.
LPF representative C.V.M.P. Ezhilarasan said the union was against declaring a holiday since “it was as good as closure” of the plant. “The management has said it will not be able to provide work from Monday but will ask the workers to go on leave with salary for a short time. It is not clear how long the management will pay salary with leave,” he said.
The next round of talks is scheduled for December 26.
