November 24, 2014
The following is an account and reflection on a
recent episode in working class
history that has created something of
a stir, not least within the
working class itself. It has spawned
diverse interpretations in the form of
reports by left-wing political parties and
other civil society organisations, and
coverage by the electronic and print
media,
including detailed accounts and analyses
in a workers’ broadsheet called
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (FMS). This
account draws primarily on FMS and
conversations with persons
associated with it.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s son
Sanjay’s dream project of making
small cars
in
India did not take off, and
after his death, the company he
set up was statised in 1983. A
collaboration agreement was signed with
the Suzuki Motor Corporation and the
first car rolled out of the
company’s factory in Gurgaon, Haryana,
the same year. A second factory
of the company was established in
the Industrial Model Town, Manesar, in
2007.
In 2011, in the factory in
Manesar, there were 950 permanent
workers, 500 trainees, 200 apprentices,
1200 workers hired through contractors
for work in direct
production process and around 1500
workers hired through contractors for
various auxiliary functions. The pace
of work was such that a car
was being assembled in 45 seconds.
Some permanent workers attempted to
organise another union against the
existing union. Strong arm tactics of
the management to make permanent
workers (most of whom were not
even aware of the attempt at
another union formation) accept the
existing union gave rise to a
surcharged atmosphere. All around discontent
coalesced into a sudden stoppage of
work. On 4 June 2011 when A
and B shift workers were together
in the factory, they took over
the entry and exit points. Most
workers in factories today in the
subcontinent are temporary workers — the
percentage of permanent workers varies
from 0 to 5 to 25% of the
work force. On 4 June permanent
workers, trainees, apprentices, and workers
hired through contractors came together,
and in this way a workers’
organisation appropriate in the current
conditions took shape, transcending the
legal framework wherein only permanent
workers can be members of the
factory trade union. What started on
4 June and continued for 13 days
should be termed a ‘deoccupation’
of the factory. Around 3000 workers
stayed in an atmosphere of freedom
inside the factory premises during
those days.
The company and the government
were taken aback. During the
deoccupation many more bonds developed
between the various categories of
workers. The company was forced to
take a step backwards and revoke
the termination of 11 workers, for
production to restart.
There was a dramatic change in
the atmosphere in the factory. The
bonds between workers
continued
to grow and management officials were
increasingly on the defensive. The
company
was forced to plan and prepare
to re-establish its control. It went
to far away industrial training
institutes and secretly recruited hundreds
of young boys. On 28 August ,
a weekly day off, 400 police men
came at night to the factory.
Company staff had arrived earlier. With metal
sheets, the factory was secured in
military fashion. On the 29th
morning when workers
arrived for their 7 am shift,
there were notices announcing dismissals
and suspensions, and entry premised on
signing of good conduct bonds for
permanent
workers.
All the workers, both permanent and
temporary, stayed out of the factory.
Inside the factory were the new
hires and workers brought from the
company’s Gurgaon factory, with a few
permanent workers from Manesar plant
itself. Arrangements for their stay inside
the factory had been made. Managerial
and supervisory staff
members
also had to work in the
production process with the workers in
12 hour shifts. This was a well
rehearsed chess game of managements to
soften workers and impose major
conditions.
Repeated attempts were made to
instigate workers to violence. The
workers refused to be instigated, even
when some of them were called by
the state government for negotiations
and were arrested there.
3000 plus workers self
organised themselves in two 12 hour
shifts outside the factory. At any
time, there were more than 1500
workers spread out near the workers’
entry gate. This continued for the whole of
September 2011. Many kinds of discussions
took place. Bonding between different
categories of workers acquired new
dimensions. Many kinds of political
tendencies flocked to the factory gates
: parliamentary left, non-parliamentary
left, radicals, activists of democratic
and civil rights organisations, students
from universities, and central trade
unions. Significantly, in the place of
peasants, factory workers made a
dramatic appearance on the socio-political
stage in the subcontinent. The workers
who were in their twenties, were
not demoralised or softened even after
being made to sit outside the
factory for a month. The managements’
well rehearsed chess game came to
a dead end. However, the workers
had not reached out to workers
in other factories to increase their
strength. A stalemate-like situation emerged.
In this scenario, a tripartite
agreement between the existing union,
company, and the labour department of
the state government was signed on
30 September. It was accepted by the
workers. When workers went to the
factory on 3 October 2011 as per
the agreement, permanent workers, trainees
and apprentices were taken on duty,
but 1500 workers hired through
contractors were kept out. This was
another master stroke by the company.
The company had also suspended
44 permanent workers. A scuffle with
one suspended permanent worker on the
morning of 7 October created
an entirely new situation. When
workers of A and B shifts were
together inside the factory, once
again they took over the exit
and entry points. The factory was
deoccupied for the second time. This
time it was not just the
deoccupation of this factory;
simultaneously, 11 other factories in
the area were deoccupied by workers.
Once again, the company and
government were taken aback. Despite
the presence of 400 policemen and
hundreds of other guards, the Maruti
Suzuki factory was deoccupied by
workers. The simultaneous deoccupation of
11 other factories opened up new
possibilities, with thousands of factories
in the neighbourhood. All round
pressure was applied and deoccupation
of seven factories was called off,
but it continued in four factories
of the Suzuki group. The hand of
the government was also restrained by
an election for a parliamentary seat.
After the casting of votes on 13
October, 4000 additional policemen were
sent to the Manesar factory on
13 night itself.
Leaders of various outfits
had been loudly proclaiming that if
the government uses the police to
force workers out of the factory,
they would close down the whole
industrial area; the entire state. On
14 October, Maruti Suzuki Manesar workers’
repeated attempts to contact these
leaders were in vain. The high
court orders to get the factory
vacated, and the administration’s efforts
to cajole the workers to obey
court orders, had not led anywhere.
After withstanding the pressure of
4000 additional policemen the whole
day, on 14 October, around 8 pm,
the workers decided to leave the
factory and join their 1500 temporary
worker comrades outside the factory to
deal with the new situation.
What is striking is that
the company and the government were
not able to understand the activities
of the workers. Its ripples were
widespread and the dangers were very
visible to the government. A third agreement
was forced by the government. The 1500
workers hired through contractors were
taken back. The company secretly gave
a significant amount of money to
30 permanent workers it considered
trouble makers and the state
government provided them jobs for
their resignations. These workers had
acquired credibility among their co-workers
through their active role in six
months of struggles. By getting rid
of these workers from the factory,
the company and the government in
fact threw away what could have
been a potential leverage for them
among the workers. Production recommenced
in the 4 factories on 22 October.
‘What do the workers
want?’ was incomprehensible to the
government and the company. The company
proceeded to give concession after
concession. Now instead of 45 seconds,
the scheduled time for making a
car was increased to one minute.
Wages for trainees, apprentices, and
workers hired through contractors were
increased. Permanent workers were promised
a significant wage increment. Parents
were included in the health insurance
scheme. The number of annual holidays
was increased. Massive wage cuts on
absence for 1 or 2 days were
stopped. The management sent its
officials to help registration of a
second union of permanent workers.
Promptly, the company recognised the
new union and commenced negotiations for
a long term agreement. The new
leaders had neither credibility nor
opposition among workers, and were
considered as an ad-hoc body for
the negotiations. In the mean time,
the second assembly plant had
commenced production in the factory,
increasing the number of workers to
more than 4000.
It has been observed that
important questions dealing with life,
time, relations, representation, articulation
and factory life were brought to
the fore by the deoccupations of
June and October 2011. In the
words of a worker:
‘Inside the Maruti Suzuki
factory, 7-14 October was the best
time. No tension of work. No
agonizing about the hours of entry
and exit. No stress over catching
a ride in a bus. No fretting
about what to cook. No sweating
over whether dinner has to be
eaten at 7 or at 9 pm
today. No anguishing over what day
or date it is. We talked a
lot with each other about things
that were personal. All of us
drew closer to each other than
we have ever been before, during
these seven days.’
In the same vein, when
the issue of 30 workers being
bought made the rounds in end
October, a worker said:
‘Earlier we used to pass
on the issues to the president,
general secretary, department coordinator —
that they will tell. But now every
worker himself answers. On every
issue, every one gives his opinion.
The atmosphere has changed.’
From February-March 2012 itself,
despite the numerous and very significant
concessions made by the company, the
workers were beginning to feel and
express that in fact nothing had
changed. Any talk of the importance
of concessions was regarded as
pro-management talk. Despite having
struggled so much, wage workers
remained wage workers. What had
changed? This was the backdrop for
the events on 18 July 2012.
An everyday occurrence, a
confrontation between a supervisor and
a worker took place in the
morning. The worker was suspended and
negotiations between the management and
the union commenced. The labour
department of the state government
reached the factory to facilitate a
resolution. It was time for the
B shift. Workers of A shift
refused to leave the factory. A
and B workers were together. All
that was simmering gathered momentum
and by evening, had turned into
a hurricane. The leaders negotiating
with the management were helpless. In
their own words, ‘if we try to
stop workers, we will be the
first to be beaten up.’
Concession after concession had
been given from October-November 2011
onwards — concessions which were very
significant by any yardstick in the
wages system. Wage workers revolted
against being wage workers. The two
symbols of the wages system : managers
and factory buildings were the targets
of the workers’ attack. Large
numbers of guards and 60-70 policemen
remained silent spectators. No guard
or policeman was injured. This was
not some action by a group of 20
or 50 workers but rather thousands of
new and old, permanent and temporary
workers participated in the revolt. It
so happens that this occurred on
18 July — it could as well have
happened on 15 May or 25 August.
As a matter of fact, the
managers and the buildings were
symbols, the reality being the social
relations they expressed…….but in
practice, embodied and tangible forms
become targets first, and it is
through this that the social relations
make an appearance. After attacking
for half an hour to forty five
minutes, the workers disappeared from
the factory……. the bosses were in
a state of trepidation, not just
in the national capital region, but
elsewhere as well.
600 hundreds commandos have
been permanently placed by the state
in IMT Manesar, 147 workers were
arrested, and arrest warrants issued
for 65 others. 546 permanent workers
were discharged and 2500 workers hired through
contractors were simply removed. Till
mid October 2014 none of the
workers locked in jail had been
given bail. Arrest warrants of 65
other workers are still pending.
According to the chairman of Maruti
Suzuki: “This is class war.”
According to a Maruti Suzuki Manesar
worker: ‘If the 18 of July had
been a thing of the whole of
IMT Manesar, it would really have
been something.’
To recap: what would be
considered very significant concessions in
the wages-system had been given to
all the workers before 18 July
2012. There was assurance and
negotiations were on that would put
the permanent workers of the factory
amongst the best paid workers in
the region. The factory had commenced
production in 2007 and all the
workers were in their twenties. The
workers were not led or controlled
by this or that group/organisation/tendency.
The workers’ action was not a
sudden outburst of rage. It was
not a reaction to some instigation
of the company. Permanent workers,
trainees, apprentices, workers hired through
contractor companies, new workers who
had been hired to run the second
assembly plant — all these workers, around
4000 workers, in a meticulous
operation on the evening of 18
July 2012 attacked two symbols of
the wages system : managers and
factory buildings. It was not this
or that bad manager who became
the target but rather any and
every manager; hundreds of managers,
MANAGERS AS SUCH WERE A TARGET.
It is this that makes happenings
in the Maruti Suzuki Manesar factory
one of global importance. Suppression
triggering explosion is well known but
concessions being rejected en masse is
a new phenomenon. It is a
radical point of departure. Maruti Suzuki
Manesar is a good example but
what is more important is that
amongst factory workers in the
national capital region in India,
similar things at different stages and
levels are gaining currency.
In the following days, the
two thousand factories in IMT Manesar
offered a significant ground for
workers to meet other workers and
to bond with them. In place of
that……..central trade unions acted fast
and shifted the venue 25 km away
to Gurgaon by constituting a committee
of 16 trade union leaders who
would decide what steps are to
be taken. Of the discharged permanent
workers numbering 546, those remaining
outside the jail were pushed into
becoming an audience for this
committee. Other workers’
representatives/supporters, critical of central
trade unions, but who also see
workers as victims and as lacking
consciousness, erased the active role
of the workers on 18th
July. They made out the company
to be the active force that had
conspired and hired bouncers to attack
workers to instigate them. Poor
workers only reacted to the bouncers’
attack and so were caught in the
management’s trap. 60-70 thousand leaflets
with these falsehoods were distributed
amongst workers in IMT Manesar, Gurgaon,
Delhi and Faridabad. Knowingly or
unknowingly these do-gooders encouraged the
workers to set out on paths that
were tiresome and exhausting. Petitions,
demonstrations, protests by the family
members of the jailed and sacked
workers; hunger strikes, bicycle protest
tours……..steps which gave some support
to the workers’ cause, but which,
if relied upon solely, only made
workers tired and exhausted. Because
of the ineffectiveness of the
committee of 16, those more to
the left gained ground. And the
venue was shifted 200 km away to
a peasant dominated area.
By July 2013 the complete
bankruptcy of all those who considered
workers as poor, exploited victims,
had reached a stage where these
‘struggles’ came to an ignominious
end — on 18 July 2013 in a
candlelight protest in daylight in
a park provided by the government,
a portrait of the manager who
died in 2012 was carried……
It is very significant that
while reflecting on the activities of
workers at the Maruti Suzuki Manesar
factory, a worker with long experience
commented that to call these
activities an ‘occupation’ is to
see what the workers were doing
through a reduced lens. ‘Occupation’
is a misnomer, it is misleading.
Occupation is how existing social
hierarchies are held in place.
Companies and governments today are on
an overdrive to gain possession of
everything. What we want is to
create a commons. Given this context,
to call what the workers of IMT
Manesar did an ‘occupation’ is to refute
the essence of their actions; it
is akin to trampling over the
possibilities they created.
Workers of Maruti Suzuki
abundantly expressed that between 7
and 14 October, when they unshackled
the factory from the control of
the management and government, they
felt a joyousness of life that
is usually unimaginable. The significance
of what the workers did therefore
lies in it being a point of departure from
where a series of deoccupations
followed. Refracted through this lens,
the significance of the ‘occupy’
movement that started in the US becomes clear – as
actually being a movement calling for
deoccupation, a taking away of the
control that companies and governments
have.
The outline and analysis
put forward above draws together the
critical elements constituting the 18
July events and also extrapolates from
them the possibilities of and
potentiality for more widespread radical
working class actions that go beyond
trade union centred demands for
concessions and reforms within the
existing system, challenging the very
foundations of capitalist society, namely,
the system of wage labour. Further,
this is not seen to be the
mechanical outcome of a particular
historical conjuncture, but an event
that foregrounds the imperative of
conscious activities and self-organisation
on the part of the working
class. Moreover, what it describes is
not in the least a product of
wishful thinking, as can be gleaned
from recognizing a potentiality which
inheres more generally in particular
features of the contemporary phase of
capitalist development globally.
About 200 years ago, the
use of coal and steam power in
place of human and animal energy
had been such a big leap in
productive forces that it severed the
producers from their tools and
established wage labour. Subsequently oil
and electricity run machines brought
about other significant increases in
productive forces, but the leap affected by
electronics is incomparable. Globally,
electronics has changed social life to
such an extent, that things that
were current some years ago, now
appear to be ancient.
Electronics entered production in
1970 in America, Europe, and Japan.
It entered China ten years later.
Ten years after China, electronics
entered production in India. In 1992
there were discussions among managements
in Japan about temporary and permanent
workers. Permanent workers were expensive,
but had some loyalty to the
company. Temporary workers were cheaper,
but had no loyalty at all towards
the company. These were among the
matters being discussed. It was the
growing weakness of companies and
governments that was manifest in their
inability to keep permanent workers.
The world over, within these 10
years, the number of temporary workers
increased tremendously. Moreover, the entry
of electronics in production rapidly
increased the speed of new inventions.
The growing possibility of the coming
of new machines narrowed down the
space for the hiring of permanent
workers further. Factories which for more
than a hundred years had been becoming
larger and larger were now easily
broken up into hundreds of spatially
dispersed units. Auto hubs, in India,
as in Gurgaon, Pune, Chennai, and
elsewhere globally, are manifestations of
this trend. Significantly, as has been
pointed out, the growing numbers of
temporary workers does not indicate
the strength of companies and
governments, but rather their weakness.
The total absence of loyalty towards
the company, the experiences of 20
to 25 years olds of working in
10 to 20 work places, destroys
many an illusion, and makes temporary
workers dangerous for companies and
governments. In other words, this
scenario, together with the bonds
forged between the temporary and permanent
workers in Maruti Suzuki over previous
years, strengthened by the shared
experiences of their ‘deoccupation’ of
the factory, provided the tinder for
the events of July 18th,
and forms a potential basis for
radical working class activity in the
future, here, and elsewhere as well.
Innumerable examples of such activities
taking place in and around Delhi
are increasingly visible.
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