three units of Maruti-Suzuki, most
of them are migrants from Odisha,
Bihar and Uttarakhand hired from
it is and skill development centres.
Production cuts by auto majors MSI,
Honda, and Hero Motor corp have
led to thousands of contractual
workers being laid off. Some 15 to
16 ancillary units like Omax at
Manesar, Automax at Binola and
Speedmax plant at Sidhrauvali
have suspended operations and
retrenched thousands of non-
permanent workers.
Casual workers, interns and
contractual workers are laid off.
1500 ancillary makers and small
vendors are forced to reduce shifts.
According to Director General of
Automotive Manufacturers Asso-
ciation at least 30,000 workers
have lost their jobs in this belt alone.
According to a labour activist, the
number is higher, as much as
50,000Maruti-Suzuki has shut down
production for two days (sept. 7-9)
which exacerbated the situation on
job losses still further. The job loss
in the automotive sector in this belt
has also hit the local economy of
the industrial model township in
Manesar.
In Maharashtra’s Pimpri-
Chinchwad belt –a major auto
cluster in western India- there are
around 12,000 manufacturing
units. Deep production cuts and
block closures, meaning temporary
shut downs to cut inventories) has
impacted these units adversely.
Tata Motors unit at Pimpri is on
temporary shut-down. Ashok
Leyland, Volvo Eicher commercial
vehicles, Bharat Benz and
Mahindra have cut their production
and temporarily shut down their
units. With these shut downs most
of the SMEs that depend on
supplies to these big companies
are affected adversely.
Due to closure of commercial
vehicle manufacturing companies
for 25 days in August, 10 to 15 per
cent of their contract workers have
12
laid off. As result some component
makers are forced to shut down
their units. It is not only the small
suppliers but also the large auto
parts maker MNC at Pune has to
cut down its production to half of
its installed capacity and laid off
20% of its contract workers. On the
whole more than 25,000 workers
are laid off in western India.
The auto manufacturing in
Tamil Nadu is accounted for 45%
of India’s motor vehicles and cars
export in 2017-18. Chennai
accounts for 33% of auto parts
production. In Coimbatore many
foundries and engineering units
cater to the automobile sector.
With slow down in the
prominent auto clusters near
Chennai
–Sriperambadur,
Orgadam and Marimalai Nagar
thousands of workers are laid off.
Ford and Hyundai plants are
located in Chennai. The companies
like Diamler, Yamaha, Nissan,
Apollo Tyres, Ashok Leyland and
TVS group have reduced their
contract work force. These
companies also cut back on
number of work-days. Diamler is
running its production in a single
shift. According to CEO of CIEL HR
Services over the last 3 months
workers earnings were dropped by
12 to15 per cent due to reduction
in the number of working days.
At
Coimbatore
major
foundries have reduced production
to 50 to 60 per cent. This led to
the loss of 50,000 jobs, mostly in
micro and small units. Due to
layoffs at Apollo Tyres, JK Tyres,
Nissan and Yamaha about 15,000
workers lost their jobs.
On September 8, Hinduja
group’s flagship Ashok Leyland,
third largest commercial vehicle
manufacture in India, announced
that it would observe a total of 59
non-working days in its five plants
in this month. It has a plant at
Chennur near Chennai, a plant at
Hosur in TN, Units at Alwar,
Rajasthan,Bandra in Maharashtra
and Pantnagar in Uttarakhand. TVS
Group’s auto component maker
Sundaram Clayton and Hero Motor
Corp announced suspension of
production at their facilities. Tata
Motors and Mahindra have also
announced
suspension
of
production.
With such large shut downs
and reduction of production and
exaggerating the ‘slow down’, the
big bourgeoisie and foreign MNCs
are playing havoc with the
livelihood of more than 2,00,000
workers across the country. They
put pressure on the government to
reduce GST rate from 28 to 18 per
cent and other tax concessions. All
this is shown and projected as if to
facilitate saving of 50% of
manufacturing jobs.
The government already
dedicated to serve and further the
interests of monopoly capital from
imperialist countries and attempts
to create an atmosphere of ease
of doing business too has reacted
in lines dictated by the finance
capital. Amit Shaw hurriedly
announced that “we need
measures that are not about saving
the auto sector but about saving
50% of manufacturing jobs in the
country which is what the auto
sector represented”. Immediately
the Finance Minister reacted by
announcing that “…….it would be
good to see GST collections slab
to evaluate impact tinkering with
28% rate. Consumer sentiments
needs to be boosted by changing
perception”.
With such high sounding
slogans like ‘saving 50% of
manufacturing jobs’ and ‘boosting
the sentiments of consumers by
changing the perception’, BJP
government had announced
concessions to corporate by
slashing corporate tax rates from
30 to 22 per cent; for new local
manufacturing units to 15% and no
contd. on page 10
Class Struggle