The workers at Manesar plant of automobile company Maruti, who were terminated in 2012 following violence during the workers’ struggle, have started an indefinite dharna at Manesar Tehsil Office demanding to get back their jobs. 

Groundxero | September 20, 2024

On 18th September 2024, after 12 long years, more than 100 retrenched workers of the Maruti Suzuki plant at Manesar in Haryana sat on an indefinite dharna near the factory gate, demanding reinstatement of those workers who were dismissed by the management in 2012. Today the dharna has entered its third day with worker unions like Satyam Auto Union, Lumax Mazdoor Union, ASI union, Bellsonia Auto Components Employees Union, Degania Mazdoor Union, HI-LEX Mazdoor Union, HMSI, Honda Motocorp Union and others extending them support and solidarity. 

The Struggle Committee of the Maruti Suzuki workers is fighting for justice for those who were summarily dismissed by the management in 2012. Since 2012, the workers had been attending proceedings at the Labour Court where their cases are pending. All the political parties in Haryana: the Congress, BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party have told the workers that they could not do much since the matter was pending in the court. 

As Haryana goes to the polls on October 5, the dismissed workers, after struggling for years with no jobs or future have started this indefinite dharna, with the hope that they can put pressure on the political parties to take up their issue.

12 years back, on 18 July 2012, during a long-running workers’ struggle, over the suspension of a Dalit worker, Jiya Lal, and ensuing deadlock between the union and the management, a violent conflict took place between the workers and the company hired goons, resulting in unfortunate death of an HR manage, Awanish Kumar Dev. Since 2011, workers in Maruti Suzuki Manesar had began their struggle for unionisation to fight against inhumane working conditions, contractualisation and over other issues. The workers struggle to unionise and press for their demands was vehemently opposed by the Maruti management.

The violence on 18 September was the outburst of the enraged workers and unfortunate culmination of a struggles including three strikes by workers since 2011 against their low wages, precarious working conditions, humiliation of workers by the floor managers and the unwillingness of the company management to negotiate with their independent union. The book, Japanese Management, Indian Resistance: The Struggles of Maruti Suzuki Workers (2023), focuses on why workers expressed their rage in such extreme ways on that day.

Following the 18 July incident, the Maruti management sacked hundreds of permanent and contract workers accusing them for indulging in violence inside the plant and holding the workers directly responsible for the HR manager’s death. Within a month of the incident, a total of 546 permanent workers and 1800 contract workers were summarily dismissed by the management. Hundreds of them, including the union office-bearers, were indiscriminately arrested. Many workers faced severe police repression. The politicians, the media and business leaders demanding “exemplary punishment” and “ruthless action” against the workers. RC Bhargava, the then chairman of Maruti Suzuki India Limited, described the incident as a “class attack”. The public prosecutor in the case against the factory workers, had appeared on news channel CNBC TV-18 and said that his objective would be to push for a death sentence for those workers who are found guilty for murdering the HR. The state-corporate-media nexus was working hand in glove to criminalise the Maruti workers’ independent union and crush the workers’ struggle.

On March 18, 2017, 13 of the Maruti workers, including twelve union office bearers and Jiya Lal, out of the 148 accused workers were given life sentences. Four workers were sentenced to five years imprisonment, while fourteen others were handed down three years of imprisonment. A hundred and seventeen workers were acquitted after having spent 5 years in prison.

The company and the Special Investigation Team appointed by the Haryana government was unable to provide any evidence against 426 of the 546 arrested workers, and 117 of them were acquitted by the court, still they were not reinstated in their jobs by the company. As legal procedures take years to conclude, this has added to the harassment of the workers, and many of them have been forced to take up odd, underpaid jobs such as gig-work to survive.

The 13 workers who were convicted for life-term under fictitious charge of murder and other crimes were granted bail after about a decade, though two of them had already passed away before they could walk free.

The retrenched workers of Maruti Suzuki (Manesar) have been organising various protest programs during the last few years, demanding their reinstatement by the company. They have repeatedly conveyed this to the Haryana government, urging it to intervene and help them get back their lost job. Every year, on 18th July, the existing permanent workers’ unions in the three Maruti plants in Haryana organise programs, seeking justice for the retrenched workers alongside their other demands. However, in the last two years, the struggle of the retrenched workers has intensified. They have formed a committee named Maruti Suzuki Struggle Committee (MSSC), and last month the committee organised a Maruti Mazdoor Nyay Convention. As per the resolution passed at that convention, 0n 18 September, more than a hundred retrenched workers came together near the Gurgaon DC Office and proceeded to Manesar to take part in a dharna.. The workers had said that if their demands are not paid heed to, they will start indefinite dharna involving the family members of the retrenched workers. 

The dharna by the workers is significant in the sense that this is the first time in 12 years that the Maruti workers are being allowed by the state to hold a dharna in Manesar. Perhaps the upcoming state assembly election has a role to play in this as the labour department has so far repeatedly given only false assurances to the retrenched workers.

However, initially when the workers submitted a letter seeking the permission to hold the dharna in front of company gate no. 2 in Manesar, the management moved the civil court, and which allowed the protest at 500 metres from the factory gate. The workers reached Manesar and decided to hold the dharna at the mandated distance. But they were stopped near the Manesar Tehsil office and prevented from sitting on dharna under the excuse of the assembly elections. The workers resisted, and finally the police allowed the dharna to began in front of the Tehsil office.

Khushiram, a retrenched worker and a member of MSSC, responding to the restrictions imposed on their dharna said: “…We’ve gone to the government, the court and the labour commissioner. But today, it seems like the Japanese management is bigger than the Labour department, the Constitution of India and the Indian justice system. It is clear that the nationalism that the politicians keep preaching to us is only in respect to Pakistan, and not when it comes to the Japanese management. The workers sitting here are Indian citizens; they follow the Indian Constitution and Indian legal system. For 12 years we have been demonstrating. Let them show even one instance of misbehaviour from our part. And yet, we are being treated as terrorists…”

Currently, the Maruti Suzuki Mazdoor Sangh (MSMS) is negotiating a settlement with the company management, and the demand of the retrenchment workers is part of their list of demands. MSSC has informed that their demand is not being commented upon by the management, but MSSC and MSMS are in regular conversation regarding this and MSMS is supportive of the demands of the retrenched workers.

Given the place of Maruti Suzuki workers’ struggle in the history of the Indian working-class movement, if the retrenched workers of Maruti are successful in forcing the management to reinstate them, it would indeed be a significant victory for the entire working class in the country.