The following article is written by Shreela Manohar, an activist based in Chennai, on the conditions of workers at the Hyundai car manufacturing unit located at Irungaattukottai, Sriperumbudur (Kanchipuram district), close to Chennai (Tamil Nadu). The article relates to a host issues faced by the workers who were on strike recently in November.
As the issue of the Maruti Suzuki workers has very well demonstrated, the plight of their counterparts in the auto-mobile industries down South is no better.
Editors
Socialism.in
HYUNDAI – FENCED OUT FROM WHAT?
TRUE TO ITS NAME, IT’S A FORTRESS IN IRUNGAATTUKKOTTAI{{1}}
Hyundai’s tactful advances in the degree of recognition accorded this time to the Hyundai Motor India Employees Union (HMIEU) in the self-fulfilling impatient “negotiations” to withdraw the workers’ strike that began on October 30, are not anomalous. With even the right to unionise based on majority voting denied, the little mundane success of wage-rise cannot be any intoxicating outcome. It has been over a month since workers returned to work under conditions of imminent suspension of 18 workers and the looming threat of disciplinary action on 20 more, along with wage-deduction for all corresponding to the period of the strike. “We need to take the Police department into confidence”, announced HMIEU, and yet, the staunch support of all the unions (from Detroit to Sriperumbudur) hasn’t dispelled the fear of arrests and imprisonment among hunger-strikers. This is not the first time, and will certainly not be the last, that the administration has sought the help of the police administration to plutocratic-ally arm-twist peaceful demonstrators.
“Since 1998”, the workers assert, “there has been no proportionate increase in the number of H1, H2 grade workmen as much as there has been in the number of supervisors. Our monthly salaries, bonuses or housing financing just do not match the rising costs for a subsistence living”. The management has not backed down in its refusal to re-distribute 0.25% of the profits as workers’ compensation. Electricity, water and raw materials for production are enjoyed at rock-bottom prices from the State, while there is no sight of the company living up to its vociferous promises of livelihood betterment. Farmers who were sweet-talked into selling their land to the administration have gotten jobs cleaning toilets at a meagre pay.
Every year, i10s, i20s, Santros and Accents{{2}} are churned out to the count of 6,30,000 pieces. Hyundai advertises that it “gifts” its workers with brand new cars, and in effect dumps vehicles that are non-starters on them. Where 1500 workers will be required to manufacture 30,000 cars, barely 1200 men are employed on permanent roll, and are monitored at the rate of 15-20 men per supervisor. Nearly 600,000 cars are the products of grossly under-paid, undocumented exploited apprenticeship. Top and middle-rung employees get frequent promotions, in contrast to the blue-collars who face spurious internal transfers between the proxy-units operating under aliases of Mobis and Vaatz{{3}}, within the same compound; a clever strategy to evade the unprofitable responsibility of job-creation and fresh recruiting.
RTI data evidences that in 2008, 2000 people have been fired overnight, and for many years, new H3 – H5 grade workers have not been invited to apply. 35 workers protesting this were jailed in 2008, including 14 workers who are now back on the job. The managers whimsically extend the precarious training term of the 450 plus apprentices, without ever appointing them permanently in most cases. Those opposed to the other workers’ union in the factory which is a favourite with the administration for its pro-management compromises, have almost always been mistreated, say the workers who are members of HMIEU. Workers who haven’t chosen sides are also forced to agree to non-participatory wage contracts and one can catch the managers visiting worker’s homes for emotional manipulation of entire families.
“As the master dangles a bone temptingly, the dog yelps and tries to snatch the elusive bone, in complete obedience” – this is the image that rests on one of the walls of the Hyundai workshop. HR executives and workshop staff cannot travel on the same office bus. “A miniature South Korea is what is being imported to deprive us of cultural rights too” is what the workers fear. A 100 Korean officials inside seem to have declared that “the laws of the Government of India will not be acceptable to them, those laws will not apply here”- clearly, Hyundai is not an Avatar of the South Korean embassy? 30 years of “loyal” sweating (bleeding) fetches a bare Rs. 28,000 per month. Work at a single station on the assembly line that used to command 20 seconds per item now requires 80 seconds, which amounts to fewer intervals and breaks that last no longer than for cracking of knuckles; apprentices need to slog for 40 seconds more. The permanent workers must be adaptable to any change, come sunshine or rain on the assembly line. The compulsion to be emotionless precise computers is appalling. 4 men at a station – getting dangerously in each other’s way, unable to turn their bodies around swiftly enough, even reflexes deliberated – they need to be puppet robots designed for the assembly-line dance.
6 days off in a year will ensure that the bonus of Rs.6000 will be the boss’s. You may be shoved by the collar and have your shirts torn or get kicked, but those are no reasons to so much as to frown. A HDFC health insurance for Rs.8000 cannot be claimed for reimbursement when it’s the workers’ parents or children who are sick – apparently, South Korean “culture” dictates so. A sum of 0.64% of the profits has remained impossible to secure for workers’ benefits. Suspension notices appearing out of the blue on obscure notice boards are sufficient for workers to be relieved without warning. A small-sized car is said to fetch the management a profit of Rs.1 lakh, besides the remuneration from selling used scrap metal on the aside. The State Government is made to believe it is just Rs.12,000. It is scary that the existences of families and whole communities depend on stagnant figures of: PF = Rs. 1750, welfare increment = 10,800, salary hike = Rs.900
Okay, so what does such an “efficient” factory bless its cherished customers with? – AQL – i.e, Arbitrary Quality Level, decided on grudgingly by bored supervisors. Satisfying?
Shreela Manohar
Chennai
[[1]] Kottai meaning Fort [[1]]
[[2]] Popular Hyundai brands in India [[2]]
[[3]] Hyundai subsidiaries [[3]]
