Auto Sector Slowdown: More Production Holidays for Workers at Ashok Leyland's Ennore Plant

Thousands of autoworkers at the Ashok Leyland plant in Ennore, Chennai are currently looking at a bleak future filled with economic uncertainties. Thanks to the auto industry slowdown – worst in 19 years – that has caused sharpest drop in the automobile sales. While one way to assess the crisis could be through declining numbers, which are hitting new lows every day, the other is through recording the effects on the lives of the worker who are bearing the brunt through continuous retrenchments and no-work days – often marketed as cost cutting measures.

In a notice issued on August 23, Ashok Leyland’s Ennore plant declared August 24, August 27 and August 31 as non-working days and August 26 as a 6th day non-working day, owing to the “continuing sluggishness” and “contraction in the commercial vehicle market”.

This is second time in the month of August when production holidays were declared as “corrective actions to safeguard the interest of the company”. Earlier, August 17 and 19 were declared to be ‘non-working day’ which were followed by strong objections from the union.

However, in order to ‘safeguard the interest of the company’ during the period of crisis, it is right of the workers that are being compromised.

At first, the wages payable for the non-working days will be decided after discussion with Ashok Leyland Employee Union (ALEU), the notice added.

When NewsClick spoke to Thavamani, Joint Secretary of ALEU, he confirmed that negotiations are currently under way with the management.

“Rampant increase in production holidays were observed in previous years as well, however, the process of negotiation doesn’t yield same results all the time,” Thavamani said, adding “… the union is demanding for full wage including incentives.”

One must ask how justified it is to for the company to put the wages and other incentives of workers to be decided through negotiation, in the name of safeguarding interest of the companies, every time in the period of economic disruptions. Such negotiations add to the already erratic financial conditions of a worker, who is living hand to mouth.

Speaking of incentives of the worker, this is not to forget that around 1,800 workers are also currently protesting against the adamant attitude of the Ashok Leyland’s management over not increasing the bonus of the workers.

According to Thavamani, a bonus agreement was reached in 2016 with the management for a period of three years. The terms laid down allowed for a bonus of Rs 100 to each employee for every Rs 1 crore recorded as net profit. However, an upper limit in terms of net profit was decided based on which the bonuses were to be decided, which means, while the net profits could touch skyrocketing numbers in a year – not to mention due to the labour of the workers – the bonuses have a maximum limit.

“The previous bonus agreement was only for three years and this year a new agreement is to be negotiated with the management for which the union has demanded a ten percent increase, while the management has offered a mere hike of five percent, which is unacceptable,” Thavamani told NewsClick.

To give a perspective to the bonus talks, according to the media reports, Chennai-based Ashok Leyland is the second-largest heavy commercial vehicle maker in the nation which recorded a rise in profits by 21 per cent to 21.95 billion rupees in 2018-19 fiscal year from 18.14 billion rupees the previous fiscal year.

However, when it came to the bonus talks, the looming economic crisis in the industry has only weaken the case put forward by the union who have observed a sit-in-dharna earlier this month and have decided to continue the protest in an absence of any “amicable” solution.

With the reports claiming relief for auto sector have started appearing after Finance Minsiter Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled measures to boost demand within the industry on August 23, it is yet to be seen how much of that relief will reach the working population, if there’s any, who have been affected the most by the crisis in ways which couldn’t be accounted just by economic figures and demand-supply relations.