Draft:Maruti Movement

• Comment: Good start but a lot of unattributed quotes, large sections that go uncited, and referencing and repairs that are required. Bobby Cohn (talk) 21:09, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

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Maruti Movement

Protest at IMT Manesar on 18th October 2024
Date	June 4, 2011 (2011-06-04) June 17, 2011 (2011-06-17) Strike to Union, July 18, 2012 (2012-07-18) Manesar Factory Violence, 2024 Indefinite Strike at IMT Manesar
Duration	2012–present
Location	Manesar, Haryana, India
Also known as	Maruti Suzuki Workers' Struggle, Maruti Suzuki Terminated Workers' Struggle
Type	Labor Strike, Workers' Protest, Industrial Unrest
Theme	Labor Movements in India
Participants	Maruti Suzuki Struggle Committee (MSSC), Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU)
Outcome	Right to Union, Bail, Acquittal of Arrested Workers
Casualties
Avnish Kumar Dev (HR Manager), Died in factory fire 18th July 2012. (Only non-worker casualty, alliance unknown.)
Jiyalal (Worker, Chief-accused), died of untreated skeletal cancer while incarcerated; Pawan Kumar Dahiya (Worker), died of electrocution while out on parole. (Two of the 13 terminated workers charged in the case of 2012 Maruti factory violence and death of Avnish Kumar Dev.)
Pradeep (Worker), died in a road accident on his way to the protest site; Omprakash Jaat (Worker), died of tubercolosis and suspected trauma from police intimidation post lockup; Sandeep (Worker), cause unknown; Mukesh Saini (Worker), cause unknown; Anil (Worker), cause unknown; Janendar Dhanda (Worker), cause unknown. (Terminated workers part of the struggle committe but not among those arrested in 2012)
Deaths	10 (1 manager, 9 workers)

The Maruti-Suzuki Workers' Struggle, Maruti Suzuki Terminated Workers' Struggle or simply Maruti Movement is an ongoing labor agitation against Maruti-Suzuki in Manesar, Haryana that began over a decade ago after the illegal termination of 546 permanent workers and 1800 contract workers of the Manesar plant after an alleged riot and controversial factory-fire. led to the death of a manager and subsequent arrest of 148 workers in July 2012. Despite a lack of evidence or conviction, the arrested workers were jailed for several years; 117 of the arrested workers were eventually acquitted and released in 2017, but 13 were sentenced to life-imprisonment. As of 2022, all workers have been released on bail or acquittal, except the 'chief-accused' Jiyalal, who died of skeletal cancer while incarcerated, and Pawan Kumar Dahiya who was fatally electrocuted while out on parole.

The violence of 18th July 2012 and its resulting trial caused massive controversy due to the contradictory accounts of Maruti and the workers, and brought to light allegations of gross labor and human rights violations in the factory normalized in India's auto-industry that had led to the formation of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union in 2011. The name of the movement is derived from 'Maruti Suzuki Struggle Committee' (MSSC), the aegis used by the workers terminated in 2012, as terminated workers can't be included in the Union.

Before the Haryana Legislative Assembly Elections of 2024, the movement, led by the MSSC, was reignited more than 12 years after it first began with an indefinite sit-in protest at Manesar Tehsil. Having entered its 13th year of continuous demonstration in 2024, the Maruti-Suzuki Workers' Struggle is one of the longest independent labor movements in the country.

Timeline of struggle

2011 strikes and union formation

The temporary vs, permanent worker divide played a significant role in the growing tensions at the Manesar plant in early 2011. Operational since 2007, the plant had a significant number of contract workers, who's working conditions, hours, and pay differed significantly from permanent workers, who themselves were being paid below-minimum wages, leading to grievances regarding job security, wage disparities, and poor working conditions.

On 3rd June 2011, an application for the registration of an independent union, then named the 'Maruti Suzuki Employees Union' (MSEU) was filed by Maruti's Gurgaon workers to the labor department of Haryana and was immediately dismissed on the grounds of an existing union, resulting in the workers launching a sit-in protest 4th June onwards. The union in question was the 'Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union' (MUKU), Maruti's in-house union at the Manesar plant, which workers alleged was dominated by the management, did not take up their issues, and didn't organize regular elections. Out of approximately 3,500 workers employed at the Manesar plant at the time, 3,000 participated in the protest for an independent union.

The management was reluctant to allow the formation of an independent union and took a hard stance on labor organization; workers were allegedly 'threatened and forced to sign a blank sheet of paper' that said they would not join such an organization. On 6th June, 11 workers, mostly office-bearers of MSEU, were extra-procedurally dismissed for 'inciting workers to go on strike'. The quick escalation of the situation led to the involvement of other unions; and on June 10th the Haryana government issued a ban on the strike, leading to even more participation from unions in the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC).

MARUTI SUZUKI should comply with ILO Convention 87 Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize. IMF-JC and the JAW-Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers' Unions, together with Federation of SUZUKI Automobile Worker's Unions will demand SUZUKI management in Japan solve this case with earnest action.

— Koichiro Nishihara, president of IMF-JC, Maruti - Suzuki workers struggle for trade union rights, https://www.industriall-union.org/archive/imf/maruti-suzuki-workers-struggle-for-trade-union-rights

On 17th June, after 13 days of strike, an agreement to cooperate was reached in the presence of labor department officials between workers and management under section 12(3) of the Industrial Dispute Act, and eventually, the Maruti Suzuki Workers' Union was formed. While the working conditions of permanent workers improved drastically, with their pay increasing nearly 5-fold, the condition of the temporary and contract workers worsened, as the management began granting fewer and fewer workers permanent status, exacerbating the divide.

2012 Maruti factory violence

On July 18, 2012, clashes broke out between workers and the management at the Maruti Suzuki Manesar factory after an altercation between a worker and a supervisor led to the suspension of the worker in question, Jiyalal. While management alleged that Jiyalal had assaulted the supervisor, the workers present on the floor testified that the supervisor had insulted him with casteist slurs. In a fire that later broke out in part of the factory, 90 people were injured and HR manager Avnish Kumar Dev lost his life.

According to Maruti-Suzuki's management, workers attacked managers and supervisors after the union's negotiations with the HR team on behalf of Jiyalal failed, leading to significant property damage, and that Dev was beaten and set on fire during the chaos. They also claimed that many other senior employees and workers were injured during the incident, and that the damage to the factory's infrastructure and machinery resulted in financial losses and production delays. The workers though, denied this claim, maintaining that the level of private security at the factory was already very high, and that it was the management's additional 'hired bouncers' who instigated the violence. At the time, though, the media largely reported the company version, even calling the day, "a black mark on India's economic image," owing to the setbacks in Maruti-Suzuki's production.

Over the next few days, 148 workers were arrested on the charges of conspiracy to riot and Dev's murder. Only about 90 workers were arrested on the 19th, followed by 10 more, and then the remaining 48 over the course of the next few days. The large number of arrests and their strange 'batchwise nature' raised suspicion and eventually led to investigative news agencies to look into the case. Tehelka's Revati Laul in her ground report concluded the police response to be an incidence of mass arrest; Maruti workers had been indiscriminately picked up from the shanties, including workers from the morning shift (not present at the factory at the time of incidence). At a press conference in October 2024, MSSC member Satish, who managed to evade arrest at the time, recounted the horror of the arrests the first day when nearly a 100 people were arrested, and said that in the days that followed, anyone that protested those arrests was also labelled a 'suspect' and put in jail.

They were picking us off one by one. Finally, we gathered everyone in the village and union and showed up in front of the police together saying, 'You arrest one of us each day, beat him up, torture him. We thought we'd gather in one place to make it easy for you, so you can just arrest all of us now.' That is how the arrests stopped.

— Labour activist and MSSC member Satish, The Ongoing Workers Struggles across Sectors in India (Press Conference), Press Club of India, https://thevoiceexpress.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/companies-have-made-up-their-own-law-labour-unions-activists-host-pc-ahead-of-maruti-suzuki-workers-chalo-imt-march-on-friday-implore-public-to-join/

Over the course of a trial that lasted several years, 135 have been ruled innocent, but not a single one of the 543 permanent workers and 1400 temporary workers illegally terminated have been reinstated.

2012-2014: Aftermath and protests

In the immediate aftermath of 18th July, media and state perception of the Maruti workers was hostile. Post a meeting with the management, the government of Haryana appointed former Rajya Sabha MP K. T. S. Tulsi special prosecutor in the case against the arrested workers. In an interview, Tulsi said that "SIT is not concerned about the problems [at the plant]. SIT is concerned about murder, primarily, & the other violence," and warned of capital punishment for the accused. It wasn't until the following year, after multiple trade unions led by the CITU organized a rally at Rohtak to demand that the Maruti workers be given similar audience that then chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda agreed to meet with sacked workers.

As per a Delhi for Workers press conference in October 2024, the workers faced "unprecedented repression by the state and management" in 2012, which catalyzed the mass mobilization of workers in Haryana that eventually took the form of the Maruti movement. The movement was expanded to villages and cities across Haryana, lending support to small and highly localized industrial movements in order to broaden their support base over the state and beyond. In 2014, the union was finally revived in the Manesar plant, and the Maruti Suzuki Struggle Committee was formed.

The Maruti movement maintains the police intimidation and violence in the aftermath of 18th July as one of psychological trauma; workers allege that Omprakash 'OP' Jaat, a terminated worker who died of tuberculosis, was left deeply traumatized after being threatened and briefly arrested by the police, and that the trauma hampered his recovery.

2014-2024: Revival of union, expansion and legal battle

In 2014, both the Haryana Legislative Assembly Elections as well as the Indian National Assembly Elections took place. In both, the regime changed hands from the Congress to the BJP, which was preceded by competitive campaigning by the rival parties. BJP's win in Haryana was noteworthy both because it followed its national victory and because before 2014, the party's voteshare in the state had never crossed 10.5%. The Maruti workers' issue was one among many that became cause for polarization during the elections, as the ruling Congress governments' antagonism towards the Maruti workers formed an opportunity for BJP to secure their votebank on the condition of extending state support to their cause. After BJP's Khattar replaced Congress' Hooda as CM, though, the state machinery and Haryana remained in favor of the Maruti management.

In 2017, a special court convicted 13 workers of charges related to the violence, including murder, and sentenced them to life imprisonment. However, in 2018, the Delhi High Court acquitted 12 of them, citing insufficient evidence. This resulted in massive protests erupting across the country for the bail and fast-paced acquittal of the convicted workers, the former of which was eventually granted in 2022, 5 years later.

The political avenue was considered again in the 2024 assembly elections, this time against the BJP, but was unsuccessful as the party was elected for a third term in a landslide victory.

Present movement

Terminated worker Katar Singh speaks at the Maruti Suzuki Worker Struggle's "Chalo IMT Manesar" protest on 18th October 2024

On September 18th 2024, the MSSC began an indefinite sit-in on the road outside IMT Manesar, where a small section of the road has been barricaded by the Haryana police who guard the area in shifts to maintain law and order, and have been on strike since. On 10th October 2024, they began a relay hunger-strike, but stopped it after the SDM stated they had to procure permissions for the same. The workers regularly organize cultural events, and protest marches to draw media attention. On 18th October, a scheduled march to the factory gates was stopped by the police presenting orders signed by the District Magistrate saying the workers did not have permission to strike outside IMT grounds. This caused controversy, as the protesting ex-workers did in fact have a court order permitting their dharna on the conditions that they maintain a distance of 500m from the factory gates, and IMT is more than 2km away. In a similar instance on the 13th of November, when asked about the same by reporters, the DM said he did not have authority to comment.

The current demands of the protest include both the demands of the terminated workers and those currently employed, including the regularization of temporary and contract workers at all four plants, reinstatement of all workers who have already been acquitted, fulfilment of unpaid dues to all illegally terminated workers including the 148 arrested (a total of 546 permanent and 1800 temporary workers), in addition to charges against all remaining workers being dropped in the 2012 case.

In November 2024, a terminated worker and struggle committee member named Pradip died in a fatal road accident on his way to the protest site at IMT Manesar. As of 2024, at least 9 terminated workers - all of whom are men under the age of 40 - have lost their lives.

Legacy and popular culture

In 2015, a documentary titled The Factory by Rahul Roy, focusing on the trial of the 147 workers arrested for the death of Avnish Kumar Dev on 18th July 2012, was released to positive reviews. Commenting on the significance of the movement as a moment in history, Roy said, "Given the nature and the scale of the issue, the fact that one is dealing with a history and the production part of it, and given the cases, there was no way I could have done justice to it all."

Cover of Factory Japani, Pratirodh Hindustani (Japanese management, Indian Resistance) by Anjali Deshpandey and Nandita Haksar, 2023

Since then, journalists and trade union activists have cited the movement as one of the most 'remarkable [examples] of class unity and militant class action in contemporary India', also noting its absence from mainstream Indian reportage in the present day to highlight the potent lack of a labor beat in the country. A notable exception came in 2023, when a Hindi language book coauthored by journalist Anjali Deshpandey and advocate Nandita Haksar titled Japanese Management, Indian Resistance (transl.) detailing the struggles of many of the falsely incarcerated as well as convicted workers and their families was published.

Prominent MSSC representative and activist Khushiram has voiced that while such representation drew attention to the painful individual struggles of the workers and drew public attention to the humanity of prisoners and protestors, an institutional perspective on the auto industry and labor struggle at large was missing from the popular narrative.