Maruti Suzuki has found itself at the sharp end of labour woes once again, and it is currently taking a few measures to ensure it gets back on its feet quickly - more importantly, that another incident like this doesn't occur again. The incident has witnessed the arrest of six more workers for alleged involvement in arson and rioting, bringing the total tally of arrests to 97. Dispatch operations haven't been affected despite the lockout at the factory.
One of the things the company is doing is sending ten Japan-based employees there to support operations. Another thing it is working on is bringing labour sourced via contractors to the factory down to zero by March of next year. This means that even contract workers will be hired after interviews and approval from the company HR - the current system allows contractors to send workers to the company, which works out cheaper for Maruti, but it doesn't allow the company any quality control on the workforce being sent by the contractor.
Maruti will not be able to shift production to its Gurgaon facility like it did the last time, so if the issue isn't resolved very soon, you can expect delivery periods for the in-demand Swift and Dzire models to spiral upward again. Dispatch to dealers from the Manesar plant continues as normal, but the normal delivery will only last as long as stocks do.
Workers at other Manesar facilities like those of Hero MotoCorp, Rico Auto, Sona Koyo etc will hold a rally on July 25 to show their support for Maruti Suzuki's employees. Maruti is losing revenue of Rs 120-130 crore every day that the plant remains shut, thanks to production losses of 1500 vehicles daily.
