In a few days, we will celebrate Republic Day. This is a good time to reflect on the meaning of the opening words of our Constitution: “We, the People of India.”
In the early days of our independence, there was so much talk of “the People” and when the words “development” or “progress” were mentioned, they were meant for the people. Now, less than a century after independence, the lives of the people no longer matter to our development and the policies which are designed to take us on the path of economic progress.
The Automotive Mission Plan and job creation
If we look at the automobile industry, the Ministry of Heavy Industries is working with auto industry associations, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers and the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association on the Automotive Mission Plan (AMP) for 2047; a plan which is expected to pave the way for India to become an advanced industrial power. The AMP 2016-26 is the collective vision of the government and the automotive industry.
Of course, the spokesmen for the industry could point out that the AMP 2026 aims to make the automotive industry a significant contributor to “skill India” programme and make it one of the largest job creating engines in the economy; the potential for incremental number of both direct and indirect jobs to be created by the automotive industry over the next decade is 65 million. This is over and above the additional 25 million jobs created in the previous decade.
The creation of jobs is surely a reflection of a concern for the people?
If we look at the history of job creation by Maruti Suzuki India Limited, a subsidiary of Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corporation, which is India’s biggest car maker with more than 43.94% market share in the passenger vehicles segment in January 2024. The company recorded passenger vehicle sales of 1,72,813 units in January 2024, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation.
By 2030, the government has committed that 30% of the new vehicle sales in India would be electric.
The struggles of non-permanent workers in the aftermath of the 2012 Manesar agitation
But what kind of jobs is Maruti Suzuki creating?
The answer to the question was given at a meeting in Gurugram on Sunday, January 5, of more than 3,000 non-permanent (contract, trainee, apprentice, temporary etc) workers who have worked and are working in Maruti Suzuki plants in Gurugram-Manesar to demand permanent jobs.
In 2012, the Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki saw an outpouring of rage by workers after intense struggles which included the occupation of the plant and on July 18 that year, the plant was set on fire and in the ensuing violence, nearly 100 managers were beaten up and one manager died. That was the starting point, in a way, for the systematic destruction of effective trade union movement in the automobile belt and the demonisation of the Maruti Suzuki workers.
The trade union leaders were put on trial during which they were framed in the case of the murder of the manager and given life imprisonment; other workers were thrown out, including more than 500 permanent workers without a domestic enquiry, which is against the labour laws.
The workers who were thrown out moved the labour courts, where their cases have been pending since 2012. The workers under the leadership of the Maruti Suzuki Struggle Committee has been pursuing the cases since then. They have also recently filed a complaint before the labour commissioner on behalf of the non-permanent workers.
The committee has helped the non-permanent workers of Maruti Suzuki organise themselves. The non-permanent workers have formed a working committee, Maruti Suzuki Asthayi Mazdoor Sangh.
But who are these “non-permanent” workers?
After the 2012 agitation, Maruti Suzuki announced that it abolished contract labour system and introduced what is called fixed term employment or contractual work.
The management created various categories of workers: apprentice, temporary workers (TW 1, 2 and 3), casual workers (CW 1 and 2) and Multi-Skilled Technical Workers (MST).
These categories of workers form the bulk of the Maruti Suzuki workforce. According to Amit Chakrakraborty, a trade union leader involved with the Maruti Suzuki workers’ struggles, the total number of workers employed by Maruti Suzuki is around 36,000 of which 83% are non-permanent workers and only 17% are permanent workers.
Gautam’s journey: A case study in inequality
Gautam, a graduate of Industrial Training Institute, Narnaul in Haryana explained to me how the system of non-permanent workers functioned and how absolutely unfair and unjust it was.
Gautam was recruited on the campus after he passed a written exam and taken in as an apprentice in 2018. He was sent to the Maruti training school where they did a document verification, biometric identification and issued him an identity card and did his medical examination.
Then began a week of training. The first day was spent in telling the batch of apprentices the history of Maruti from the time it started and produced its first Maruti 800 car and how the Maruti Suzuki partnership began.
Then, for three days, they gave oral lectures and showed videos of the car manufacturing process. They emphasised the importance of working in accordance with the strict timing and by the stopwatch. They also explained the safety precautions the worker should take.
After that, he was sent to the Manesar plant and put in the casting workshop. For the first two or three days, he was shown how to work by another non-permanent worker, whose contract was ending.
He was not taught how the robots or the other machines worked; those skills were left to a permanent worker. The actual work was done by three workers who were all non-permanent workers, either TW 1 or 2 and he being the apprentice.
His salary was Rs 13,000 of which the government gives Rs 10,000. He was not given any Provident Fund (PF) or Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) benefits. After one year, he was given a letter wishing him a “bright future” and sent home.
Also read: The Life of Labour: Maruti Suzuki Violence in Manesar – a Retrospective
Gautam was not given an assurance of being called again and he just waited for a call or message. After three months of sitting idle, he was told to join the weld shop in Gurugram. This time, he worked in the assembly line and his work was to fix the hinge in the door of the cars.
Once again, he was told how to work by a temporary worker.
Gautam learnt to work and think in seconds because he had to fix the hinge every 30 seconds. He also got used to having a tea break of seven and a half minutes in which he had to have tea and a snack, rush to the toilet and come back in time to put on his safety gear and get back to work.
As a temporary worker, he got Rs 26,00 but since the PF and ESI was deducted, he got Rs 24,000 in hand.
After working for seven months, his contract ended and he was given a letter stating that he had worked for seven months. Once again, Gautam was back at home and jobless, waiting and hoping he would get a permanent job in Maruti Suzuki. There was no feedback on his performance or how they had judged him.
After an excruciating wait of four months, he was sent a message that he could join the company as a temporary worker, this time as TW 2.
Not told whether it would lead to a permanent job, he had no idea. If your performance is good, then they will call you. Once again, the work was done by temporary workers and they had the same shifts as the permanent workers.
Once again, his contract ended after seven months.
This time, he waited for one year. He got a call asking him to take the examination for the post of a permanent worker. He gave the exam which he said was quite easy. But to his utter disappointment, he was not selected, not told how well or poorly he had done in the exam, or what his score or the cut off score was. He was just told he had not passed the exam.
According to Maruti Suzuki records, they had employed three workers when, in fact, they had employed one worker three times over as non-permanent worker.
Gautam went around looking for another job in another company, showing them his certificates from Maruti Suzuki and each company said that those certificates were worthless. Finally, he got a job at a factory called Gronz with a salary of Rs 13,610. He left because he could not live on the salary. Gautam is now 27 years old with no job.
Demands for justice and upholding constitutional values
There are some 30,000 workers like Gautam who have worked in Maruti Suzuki as non-permanent workers. And now Maruti Suzuki is opening a new factory in Kharkhoda, Sonipat. The Maruti Suzuki non-permanent workers are demanding that the permanent workers to be taken to the Kharkhoda factory should be taken from the pool of some 30,000 workers who have worked as non-permanent workers with them already.
The non-permanent workers of Maruti Suzuki have a charter of demands, which includes that the principle of equal pay for equal work must be implemented and that they must be able to represent their interests because at present, the union represents only the interest of the permanent workers.
While the Japanese managing director Hisashi Takeuchi earns an annual salary of more than Rs 51 crore, the non-permanent workers earn anywhere between Rs 12,000 to Rs 30,000 monthly. After the struggles, the permanent workers earn around Rs 1.3 lakh.
It would be entirely in the spirit of the Constitution that the voices of the people be heard by the government and that transnational companies like Maruti Suzuki be bound by constitutional values. If the just and fair demands of “the People” are not heard, then the people will have the right to assert their rights and enforce them by means available to them. For the time being, the Maruti Suzuki non-permanent workers’ union has announced that they will struggle for their rights through legal and constitutional means, respecting the law and hoping the government will respond.
Nandita Haksar is a human rights lawyer and an award-winning author.
