Thousands of workers on protest for over a month at the Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) plants near here are all set to return to work unconditionally on Tuesday.
The decision to resume work, from the first shift of April 22, was taken at a general body meeting of the TKM Employees Union here on Monday. Their return augurs well for the two plants of Indian subsidiary of the Japanese carmaker where only limited operation was being carried out with the help of supervisory staff. The combined capacity of the two plants is 3.10 lakh units, but the company refrained from quantifying the drop in production.
Giving details of the meeting, general secretary of the Union R. Satish said all the 4,200 employees, who were on protest against the good conduct undertaking that the company insisted upon, would be returning to work. The decision of the Union comes in the backdrop of the State government, on Saturday, asking the management and the workers to restore normality in operations immediately.
“We are thankful to the government for prohibiting the lockout [declared on March 16] and asking the company to allow us unconditionally,” he said. The TKM management had lifted the lockout a few days later but asked for the undertaking from the employees. Thirty employees were also placed under suspension pending enquiry. All these followed no agreement on the wage revision.
On the demand for the suspension to be revoked, Mr. Satish said the Union was confident that the 30 employees would come clean after the enquiry. The government order was issued after conciliation talks before the Labour Department officials failed last week.
