Amit Panday
Pune: Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), the country’s second largest carmaker, has agreed to suspend plant operations for a week following a face-off between the factory workers and the company management at its manufacturing plant near Chennai on Monday, three people aware of the development told ET Auto.
Several workers at Hyundai’s Chennai plant have been demanding plant shutdown for the past 5 days amid rising covid cases within the premises.
“The workers from the first shift refused to work on the shop floor on Monday morning and confronted the company management with the demand to shut down the plant to break the chain,” said a person, requesting anonymity.
Refusal to work in the factory came after more than 300 fellow workers were reportedly detected COVID positive over the past few days, especially after the state government imposed a partial lockdown starting May 10, the person added.
“About 7-8 employees have lost their lives to COVID over the past few days. They were mostly managerial level employees including senior engineers in the Hyundai factory,” he said.
Confirming the development and responding to ET Auto’s queries on the matter, Hyundai Motor India said, “Considering the prevailing situation in Tamil Nadu, Hyundai management has decided to temporarily suspend the plant operations for a period of 5 days, starting tomorrow, 25 May 2021 until 29 May 2021. However, today (24th May) the plant operations are underway as per schedule.”
Also, according to the company management, only two employees have succumbed to covid.
People aware of the matter disclosed that while negotiations between the management and the workers continued through the day, workers in the second and third shift were eventually allowed to work on the shop floor today.
About 7-8 employees have lost their life to covid over the past few days. They were mostly managerial level employees including senior engineers in the Hyundai factorySource (Requesting Anonymity)
Hyundai employs close to 2,000 workers at its plants near Chennai as the car production facility operates in three shifts. The company has been running the plant at near-full capacity owing to strong demand for passenger vehicles.
“As a caring and responsible corporate, Hyundai Motor India has always prioritised the safety, health and well-being of its employees. During the ongoing second wave of COVID- 19 pandemic, the company has undertaken several proactive and progressive measures to empower, enable and support the workforce,” the company added.
Meanwhile, A Soundararajan, president (Tamil Nadu), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), said that there are COVID-19 cases detected in each factory around the Chennai belt, which employs about 50,000s permanent workers and more than one lakh contract workers.
“Most of the manufacturing plants continued to operate despite the state government’s advisory. There are COVID-19 cases in almost every factory and there are casualties being recorded. We wrote a letter to the chief minister requesting him to step in and impose complete lockdown shuttering the factories as cases continue to rise,” Soundararajan said.
He said that workers fear for their life but have no option but to go to work as the companies won’t grant leave amid this pandemic.
“My estimate is that several thousand workers have contracted COVID-19 infection across the manufacturing plants only because they continued to operate while flouting protocols despite the lockdown. These plants include Hyundai, Ford, BMW, Yamaha, Apollo, Renault-Nissan, Caparo Engineering among others,” he said.
As the second wave continues to grip several parts of India, Tamil Nadu has reportedly become the new epicenter of the virus spread. While the state has been logging more than 30,000 new cases daily for almost 10 consecutive days, the toll has surpassed 35,000 mark for each day over the weekend as the situation worsened. Chennai alone recorded over 5,100 new cases and more than 80 deaths on Sunday.
This comes at a time when other heavily affected regions such as Maharashtra, Delhi NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and others have started recording a dip in the daily case count.
Tamil Nadu, which currently has close to 3 lakh active covid cases across the state, saw lockdown extension by a week. While appealing to the people to brace up for a stricter week-long lockdown earlier today, the state chief minister MK Stalin said that lockdown without concessions can alone contain this infection completely.
The strike threat at the plant in Tamil Nadu, jointly owned by Nissan Motor and alliance partner Renault, comes ahead of a court hearing over allegations from workers that social distancing norms were being flouted and factory health policies did not sufficiently address the risk to lives.
