The Toyota Kirloskar Motor Employees’ Union on Thursday said it was prepared either for a long drawn out conflict or negotiation under its own terms to end the stalemate at the automaker’s Bidadi factory.
The deadline issued by the State government and the Department of Labour to end the dispute will end on December 7.
Prasanna Kumar Chekkere, president, TKM Union, said, “The union and its 3,500 members want the workload issue and suspension of 40 workers, including the office bearers and executive committee members, to be revoked. Else, the union is prepared for a long drawn out conflict with the management.”
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Addressing a media conference here, he alleged that the workers’ protest happened only after the management kept changing production norms without any study or consultation with the recognised trade union.
The union has been raising the issue of workload and its adverse impact on the mental and physical wellbeing of workers. “We raised the matter with the management in July, 2019, in writing, but it dismissed the issue in a flippant manner,” said the leader.
However, TKM management in a statement said the strike was called upon protesting the suspension pending enquiry (SPE) of one of the employees who has had a “systematic record of misconduct” and was again involved in the breach of discipline and unacceptable behaviour within the factory premises.
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“TKM would like to clarify here that the SPE is neither a punishment nor a loss of a job but a standard legal measure to ensure free and fair enquiry of the misconduct of an employee by a third party enquiry officer,” the statement said. During the SPE period, the employee concerned is eligible to receive legally designated subsistence allowances which is a portion of his salary and the person is reinstated at work if he is found not guilty, it clarified. Discipline will always be at the core of TKM’s operations, it added.