Ford workers had formed a union in 2003 but it was not registered. Now there is a newly formed employees union at Ford’s Chennai plant. The company has been apprised of the union via a formal letter. The union has also sent a letter to the Deputy Labour Commissioner requesting him to intervene to begin a dialogue with the company and open negotiations.
There has been a little disconcert amongst the workers regarding debiting of their leave account while the plant is shut down for maintenance. Moreover, the employees are also forced to compensate for the ten minutes tea break. A feeling in job insecurity also exists amongst the Ford workers, as there are currently 3000 workers working at the plant of which only 1200 are permanent employees.
Ford has planned an influx of new 1000 workers to ramp up the production for Ford Figo model by the end of this month. Workers fear that the new apprentices will add to the imbalance in the ratio of permanent and temporary workers further adding to job insecurity.
On the official note President and Managing Director of Ford India Michael Boneham stated, “We continuously engage in and encourage open dialogue between employees and management. We are pleased that the partnership among all employees contributes to the growing success of Ford India. We prefer to keep these employee-management discussions internal, which respects their confidentiality.”
