Maruti Suzuki has been severely deprived of support and finds itself at the receiving end, once again, as the Central government has termed the conditions levied by the Maruti management as cracking the whip.
The government is in no mood to lend a sympathetic ear to the car maker as it saw the good conduct bond as unreasonable and whimsical. The centre added that the good conduct bond that the workers were asked to sign, by Maruti Suzuki management, during the recent shut down at the Manesar plant in Haryana could abet “unfair labour practice.”
Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge was quoted as saying, "Demanding of good conduct bonds from workers as per conditions before allowing them to resume work is an arbitrary act and it also amounts to unfair labour practice."
The minister came out with this statement in the form of a written reply in Lok Sabha, answering the questions raised by Gurudas Dasgupta of Communist Party of India and Gopinath Munde of Bharatiya Janta Party. The two members asked the Labour and Employment Minister as to whether there has been any flouting of labour laws by various big companies, including Maruti, when they come up with such bonds.
According to Kharge, the Haryana government said that the management of Manesar plant wanted to ink a deal with its workers before they enter the unit. The management argued that in view of ubiquitous indiscipline shown by workers and deliberate tampering with the quality of the production being reported regularly, the agreement had sense to it.
Under the good conduct bond, the workers are required to provide proper assurance that they would "not resort to go slow, intermittent stoppage of work, stay-in-strike, work-to-rule, sabotage".
Thus, the unfavourable attitude worn by the Centre would definitely hurt the burdened Maruti camp, which has been on the blink for a long time now. For the car maker it was a perfect opportunity to balance things that slipped away in the blink of an eye.
