The strike of 5,000 temporary workers of Tata Motors in Jamshedpur entered second day on Thursday with employees refusing to budge in protest against salary cuts, which they alleged was contrary to the wage revision agreement signed with the management on July 31. The employees refused to work and protested inside the plant.
The 5,000-odd temporary workers, including about 500 women, entered the plant but did not resume work, raising slogans against the management.
A senior functionary of Telco Workers' Union said a wage revision agreement signed on July 31 promised a salary hike for temporary workers, but no temporary worker got a hike on Tuesday, when the August salary was given with the wage revision coming into effect. Most got wages reduced by some thousands, some got drastic cuts.
A company statement from Mumbai claimed production was not hampered due to strike by temporary workers. "Production work is going on. A section of temporary workers instigated by some vested interests are staging a protest seeking additional clarity on the pay hike," said the statement.
With the plant manufacturing over 200 truck variants, ranging from multi-axle trucks, tractor-trailers, tippers, mixers and special application vehicles, the Jamshedpur facility has led the company's evolution into a manufacturer of global repute. Besides India, these vehicles are sold in South Africa, Russia, Myanmar, the SAARC region and the Middle East.
The Jamshedpur facility was Tata Motors' first, set up in 1945, to manufacture steam locomotives. It led the company's foray into commercial vehicles in 1954. It has been modernized through the decades, with a particularly intense scale in the last 10 years.