The Maruti Suzuki Strike

Workers’ Unity Trade Union

In Eighteenth Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte, Karl Marx, wrote, ‘All great world-historic facts and
personages appear, so to speak, twice... first time as tragedy, the second time as farce’. In the struggle
of workers against the management of Maruti Suzuki – India’s largest automobile manufacturing
company, both tragedy and farce occurred within a span of few days. The tragedy was that the workers
had to withdraw their strike without any of their concrete demands being accepted by the
management, the farce being that once again as in several struggles of the past, top leadership of the
workers capitulated in front of capital, with the top leaders of the union leaving the company after
taking Rs. 40 lakhs in golden handshakes along with thirty other members, most of them constituting
the core of the new union. According to the media reports 30 workers at Maruti’s Manesar plant, the
key people who had been responsible for the strike, were paid off by the management to exit the
company. The workers received a combined Rs. 4.2 to 4.8 crore, based on the amount paid to each
worker.

The strike belied the Maruti’s claim of being a responsible corporate citizen, and that of an entity that,
‘...believes in the conduct of the affairs of its constituents in a fair and transparent manner by adopting
the highest standards of professionalism, honesty, integrity and ethical behaviour’, 1 prominently put
up on their website and that was touted as model to be followed by all other companies in India. But
as we will see later, the reality was far from rosy as assiduously painted by the company’s management
and the corporate media.

It all started in June 2011, when eleven leaders of the workers from the Manesar factory went to
Chandigarh to meet the Labour Department and complete the formalities regarding registration of a
new trade union – the Maruti Employee Suzuki Union (MESU). The Labour Department of Haryana –
that like other organ of the government has been acting as an extended arm of the capitalists – faxed
this information to the management, following which the management machinery came in full swing
to pressurise the workers inside the factory from joining the new union. The management started
taking signatures of the workers on a blank sheet and arm twisting them to sign an undertaking that
they would continue with the pro-management union – the Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (MUKU). It
would be pertinent to note that the existing union MUKU was formed with the active support of the
management, and has in its charter, that it would not affiliate with any trade union federation, nor
induct any outsider as office bearer; making it an ideal body for carrying out the diktats of
management.

The leadership of the new union started mobilising the workers against signing on the blank paper.
On June 4th the leadership started a struggle against the management and were successful in
retrieving some of the blank papers. But the management kept pressurising them and resorted to
witch hunt as a result the workers decided to go on flash tool down strike from afternoon of June 4,
2011. Thus, started the workers struggle against Maruti Suzuki, which in coming days was to become
a flash point in the long history of the working class struggle in India.

This strike was joined by the entire workforce of the plant consisting of permanent, casual, as well as
the apprentice grade. The workers raised various demands like incentive cuts, few breaks and low
wages. They also demanded that the temporary workers should be given preference for permanent
posts.
It would not be out of place to note the appalling working condition prevalent in the company. A
normal shift consists of 8 hours excluding an half an hour lunch and two 7 minutes breaks, during
which the worker has to have refreshment as well as visit the toilet etc. A worker loses his half a day
wage even if he is one minute late and even though he continues to work through that half day. A
substantial portion of their salary is under the head called performance incentive. If a worker goes on
leave for a day, Rupees 1500 is deducted from his salary, for 2 days the amount deducted is Rs. 2200,
and for three days Rs. 7000–8000 is deducted. While on the other hand if he works overtime on a
holiday then he will be paid Rs. 250 only. The plant lacks in implementation of safety measures, the
gloves worn by the workers become unusable soon – but they are made to turn the gloves inside out
and re-use it, resulting in rashes and allergies.

Once the news of the apparent workers unrest came to the front, the management resorted to the
age old tactics of cajoling and arm-twisting on 5th and 6th of June, the management sealed the gates;
placed security guards in front of them in order to prevent any contact between those workers who
were inside the plant with their colleagues outside. The management further prevented the striking
workers and their supporters from having any communication with the media. On 6th June eleven
workers were dismissed, most of whom were those spearheading the strike and the leaders of the
new union. Various trade unions like the Communist Party of India led All India Trade Union Congress
(AITUC), the Communist Party of India – Marxist led Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the
social-democrats led Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) along with the ruling Congress party led Trade Union
Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) formed a ‘joint action committee’ to support the strike.
AITUC emerged as the main ‘representative’ and spokesperson of the workers given the fact that it
has some unions in adjoining factories. This joint action committee mobilised workers from adjacent
factories and demanded that the eleven terminated members be reinstated. The other major
demands of the workers were put on a back burner. The AITUC general secretary Gurudas Dasgupta,
on being asked, on the conditions put forward by the union, in its talk with management said: ‘There
is just one agreement. All the 11 workers should be taken back’. 2

Meanwhile the Haryana government that has always sided with the capitalists and is in forefront of
implementing the neo-liberal programme expectedly declared the strike illegal with its Minister of
Labour and Employment declaring: ‘The Haryana government has, under the provisions of the
Industrial Depute Act, 1947, referred the matter of ongoing strike in Maruti Suzuki Udyog Ltd,
Manesar, by the workers to the competent labour court and has also passed the orders prohibiting the
continuance of the strike in the industrial unit.’ The strike got support from other workers of the area
who came out in full support of their fighting comrades. In fact the Gurgaon industrial area has been
privy to a massive show of working class solidarity in almost all the major struggles, which have been
waged. One may remember that the workers of the area came out in full swing when in October 2009,
Ajeet Yadav, an employee of the automobile firm RICO Pvt. Ltd, was brutally murdered by the hired
goons of the factory management. At that time, more than one lakh (one hundred thousand) angry
workers from the various companies joined in a strike on 20th October bringing the entire Gurgaon-
Manesar industrial belt to a near standstill. They were demanding immediate action to be taken
against the guilty and to enforce a better pay and working conditions for them, including the right to
form their own union.3 Unfortunately in the absence of a revolutionary left force, the working class
resentment is not being taken to next level of converting it to a mass movement against capital.

On 20th June the workers of the adjoining industries planned to hold a massive demonstration, this
took the state administration and the entire capitalist to come on backfoot, the Maruti Suzuki
management had also started feeling the heat due to zero car production in the plant, Maruti
management repeatedly had to assure the anxious market and ever anxious shareholders that car
dealers have 20 to 28 days stock and that the loss of 6,000 cars can be “made up for”.

AITUC leader Gurudas Dasgupta meanwhile started negotiation with the Haryana Chief Minister and
even hoped that solution was within reach, by then the demand put forward by AITUC was already
reduced to pure bargain of reinstating the terminated workers. Dasgupta even requested the Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene and wrote a letter, urging him to speak to Haryana Chief
Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and help end the standoff. On the other hand, the secretary of AITUC,
D. L. Sachdeva went public with statements like ‘AITUC will ask the Maruti Suzuki workers to work
overtime once the dispute is settled’, and, ‘We want it [the dispute – author] to be resolved. Even the
workers are anxious to restart the production. Hopefully, some solution will be found. We want the
workers should resume production, normalcy should prevail and we will persuade the workers to
make up for this loss of production by working extra hours or on holidays. AITUC wants industrial
development to take place in Haryana. We are not against FDI investments but we feel these
multinational corporations should respect our national laws, and should allow workers to form their
own union.’

On the other hand the management for the first time budged and said that they are ready to accept
the new union registration on their own terms. Under this plan, the new union was to be under
tutelage of company’s umbrella council, which would be responsible for wage revision and
ameliorating other issues. In another word the proposed union was to be nothing more than a
controlled entity – a worker’s club; which of late business entities world over, have been promoting
under the deceptive terms ‘Corporate social responsibility’(CSR), worker-management partnership
etc. to deceive the working class and by-pass their genuine grievances.

As in other struggles, the reformist left leadership capitulated to the company’s gesture and pursuant
to verbal assurances of government officials and company management called off their solidarity
strike, D. L. Sachdeva, the AITUC Secretary in the morning of 14th had declared a tool-down strike at
some factories, workers in up to 65 plants in the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt, later on the same
day he told the media that ‘The two-hour strike has been called-off for today on the appeal of the Chief
Minister and the Labour Commissioner. They sought a day’s time to resolve the issue. Consequently,
the strike has been postponed for 24 hours’. 4 Taking the age-old road of smothering any workers
discontent from assuming a militant stance, the AITUC-CITU duo true to their character subsumed the
workers discontent under bureaucratic wrangling.

On 17th June after negotiations were held between the representatives of the Haryana Government,
the company management and the representative of the new union (Maruti Suzuki Employees Union)
Shiv Kumar and D. L. Sachdeva. During this talk they resolved: ‘The company has now agreed that we
would not be asked to sign the paper. Also, the fact that Maruti took back the 11 workers shows that
our demands were met’. Again no demand for improving the working condition, wage were made, the
other demand for forming new union was left ambiguous. With this assurance the strike ended, the
workers were told that they have achieved ‘victory’. The victory was that the eleven workers were to
undergo an ‘inquiry’ that the Left leaders termed as normal, and the other being that the workers lost
only two days wage per day of strike instead of eight. The wage deduction was another of several new
traits that became evident in this strike.

So the first phase of strike ended. The company hired external trainers and spiritual organisation –
The Brahmkumaris to heal the relation between the company and the workers. But the dynamics of
struggle had still not finished.
Emboldened by their stand and cornering workers during the strike, the old approach of management
continued. For almost a month tense but calm situation prevailed inside the factory. The management
claimed that the workers are deliberately not achieving the production and are also compromising on
the quality of the cars. On 26th July the registration of the new union was rejected citing irregularities.
The registration of the new union was never to be done as the Haryana government had time and
again declared that it wants a congenial environment for development, so that more capital comes to
the province. Suzuki had also threatened that it was contemplating to shift its operation to the more
industrial friendly state of Gujarat, where the arch-rightist BJP led government of Narendra Modi, had
assured them and other industrialists of providing a peaceful pro-business environment. In fact it is
worth noting that when the Tata’s faced the people’s protest for their Nano car project in West Bengal,
Gujarat offered them land and ‘industrial peace’. This is the state of Indian ruling class, who vie with
each other to provide for the maximum exploitation of working class, so that capital comes to their
area.

Shinzo Nakanishi, Managing Director, of Maruti Suzuki India, thundered that at no cost will the
company tolerate a second union. He said ‘It has always been our policy to have one union for all
workers, with the union having no outsiders as members. We are making efforts to communicate with
our workers at Manesar, change will come about gradually through education’.

On 27th July, the situation became tense once again, when the contract workers raised their concern
of excessive work pressure and demanded more people to be hired. The management, it seems was
waiting for such incident to occur. Next day the police entered the premises and arrested four workers
while six more workers were suspended, the workers started protest and the management was forced
to state that the four workers were not arrested. The second shift workers were not allowed to come
inside the factory. The first shift workers refused to leave the factory premises. The management said
that the suspended workers would be reinstated, but it had by then started hiring new people for
places outside of the Delhi region, mostly on contract basis. The supervisors who after the first round
of strike were showing some sign of human behaviour, again resorted to their old way of high
handedness.

By 28th August, a total of ten workers were suspended while another eleven were dismissed. In the
night a 300 to 400 strong police force in riot gear entered the factory converting it into a virtual police
station. According to report in media, the order to send so many policemen to the site in Manesar
came directly from the office of Deepender Singh Hooda, Member of Parliament from Rohtak
(Manesar is in the Rohtak constituency). Hooda is the son of the Chief Minister of Haryana, Bhupinder
Hooda.5

The management also announced that all workers would have to sign a ‘good conduct bond’ before
they are allowed to enter the factory. According to this bond which claimed that it is being signed
voluntarily in accordance with Clause 25(3) of the Certified Standing Orders. The workers were and
should not resort to go-slow, intermittent stoppage of work, stay-in-strike, work-to-rule, sabotage or
otherwise indulge in any activity hampering production, irrespective of any steps taken by the
management. In other words this bond was nothing but a legal way of keeping the workers as bonded
wage slaves. There is no provision for such bonds in the labour laws of the country; neither do such
provisions exist in any place in world. But then in this age of neo-liberalism the capitalists formulate
their own rules. Later the Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said in parliament that
good conduct bonds was an ‘arbitrary act’ and amounted to ‘unfair labour practice’. But during the
entire strike period the minister and his ministry were tight lipped on the validity of the bond.
The media, as expected left no stone unturned in vilifying the workers for not signing the bond,
without examining the provisions of it. Not one of the so called mainstream intellectual or media
asked, why not the management also sign a good conduct bond for being a good employer! The entire
showdown since the beginning was portrayed as a mere local dispute being fanned by left wing trade
unions. The news covered only of the loss being incurred by the company, as if the workers whose
entire survival was at stake were a happy lot.

Only eighteen workers signed the bond on the first day and rest all chose to resist. The management
started to hire contract workers and depute workers from its other plant and started the production.

The news of this struggle had spread worldwide with its greatest impact being on the adjacent
companies, where also the situation was same as that prevalent in Maruti. The working class as on
other occasions started galvanising. On the first of September approximately 3,000 members from 35
unions of the region gathered in front of the Manesar plant to voice their solidarity with the belligerent
workers. The unions declared a tool-down strike the following week if the management of Maruti does
not come for negotiation.

The entire working class of the area got mobilised and on 12th September, another strike took place
at the automobile supplier Munjal Showa in Manesar. The companies’ plant at Gurgaon and Haridwar
also went on strike. The company’s management said that the Maruti incident was behind the strike.

The Maruti struggle attracted solidarity from the progressive section of the society with students from
Delhi and other organisations coming out in full support. The other subsidiaries of Maruti itself came
into grip of struggle, with workers getting mobilised at Suzuki Powertrain Ltd. and Suzuki Castings in
Manesar and workers at Suzuki Motorcycle India Ltd. in neighbouring Kherki Dhaula in comradeship
with the Maruti Suzuki workers and for own demands. More than 4,000 workers of these factories
went on strike. The official union of Maruti MUKU at the Gurgaon plant when asked to support talked
of a ‘potential of a hunger strike’, instead of coming out in full favour of the workers.

By 16th of September the strike at the Suzuki Powertrain and Suzuki castings, forced the management
to close the Gurgaon plant due to non-availability of parts. The union in Suzuki Powertrain is affiliated
with HMS. On the same day they negotiated with the management to end the strike at the Suzuki
Powertrain, thus once again betraying the class solidarity. This incident gave company the lifeline
which otherwise would have forced it to accept worker’s demands. Again the anti-working class
character of the social democrats became evident. Meanwhile the company continued to hire
temporary staff and dismiss/suspend the existing workers.

Solidarity protests took place in various cities of India. Several people from various left progressive
organisations protested in front of Haryana Bhawan in Delhi and at a Maruti Suzuki showroom near
Connaught Place. Meanwhile the media announced that in Maruti more than 1300 people had started
working, and production had started. A claim that later was refuted by the workers. A section of
Japanese railway union also demonstrated in a show of solidarity giving the struggle an international
character.

The New Trade Union Initiative decided to stage demonstrations in front of Maruti Suzuki
establishments in 12 locations across India. The trade union federation decided to observe a ‘National
Day of Action in Solidarity with Maruti Workers’ on 22nd September. The solidarity and protest
demonstrations were held, across India where various affiliates of NTUI took part. In Delhi, according
to NTUI press statement ‘around 75 people, including NTUI affiliate members, the Workers Union
Trade Union (WUTU), along with the Voltas Employees Union (VEU), Mazdoor Ekta Manch, and
students and teachers of the University of Delhi (through New Socialist Initiative and Students for
Social Justice) marched from the Tiz Hazari Metro Station to a Maruti-Suzuki showroom on afternoon
of 22nd September. The showroom was occupied for about half an hour and then held a public
meeting in car yard of the outlet that was addressed by Padam (WUTU), Tek Chand Jangra (Voltas)
and Gautam Mody (NTUI).’

Similar protests happened in states of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and
West Bengal.

A meeting between the union and management failed again on 27th September. The management
remained adamant on the signing of a good conduct bond and on suspension. The workers
polarisation by then not only spread to Suzuki’s other plants but also in other factories in the Gurgaon
Manesar area. Apart from the adjacent areas, the news of valiant struggle going on in the Maruti had
a profound impact on the other industrial areas of the country where the workers started strikes and
protests. For instance workers in Bosch automobiles went into a two week lock-out in Bangalore
against the company’s decision to outsource some work and dismantle the plant.

AITUC meanwhile came with a declaration saying that it will end the strike and press for an immediate
return to work, if the company agrees to place about half of the 62 fired workers and would be happy
if the workers are put on suspension. AITUC had been closely coordinating with other two central
trade unions CITU and HMS, as mentioned above. The trio again entered in agreement with the
management to end the strike. According to the agreement the workers were to sign the good conduct
bond; the dismissal of 15 workers were to be turned into suspension; plus ‘No work, no pay’ along
with one daily wage per day to be imposed on the workers as penalty! Like on the earlier occasion
there was no demand made from the workers side, and the entire agreement was signed keeping in
mind the management wishes. The Trade Unions repeatedly declared that the workers are in weak
position, completely ignoring the fact that the workers were really at the bargaining position due to
the economic loss being sustained by the company and the massive proliferation of working class
solidarity in the area. Had these TUs adopted a firm stand and instead of saying the workers are in
weak position given a militant call for working class unity, the outcome would have been very
different. But then severing ties with reformism does not happen overnight.

Emboldened by the events, the management went on the extreme to suppress the militant spirit of
the workers. When the workers returned to work on 3rd October, the company refused entry to the
1,200 workers hired through contractors and were refused entry as they had also taken part in the
protest and company occupation and had demonstrated solidarity with the other workers. Inside the
factory Maruti decided to shift a lot of workers from one work-station to the other, which caused
discontent. The company also suspended the company bus service that used to fetch workers who
lived further away. With no public means of transport available the workers found it extremely difficult
to reach the factory on time, which gave the management another chance to deduct wages for coming
late.

The workers again started protest, defying the ‘solution’ agreed by the capitalist backed Haryana
government, the company management, along with the Trade Union combine of HMS-AITUC-CITU.
The 3,500 workers on October 7th, again went on a flash strike, against the betrayal and the excesses
of the management. This action at Manesar again sparked a wave of working class action with almost
8,000 workers at a dozen or more auto industry-related plants in the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt,
staging a walk-out in a display of class solidarity.

The workers took complete control of the plant. The management had to concede that ‘The plant is
effectively captive in the hands of striking workers who are bent upon violence’. The management
termed this action as a law and order problem. The company said the latest round of labour unrest at
the plant is degenerating into a law and order problem, with workers indulging in several random acts
of violence and damage to property inside the factory premises on Saturday (8th October).

‘The agitating workers attacked co-workers, supervisors and executives in multiple incidents of
violence, and damaged factory property since they began the stay-in strike on Friday evening (7th
October),’ according to the official statement issued by the company. The statement said that on
Saturday (8th October), the company was able to rescue 355 contractual workers. ‘They were badly
beaten up by the striking workers. They were forced to join the stay-in by the striking workers. These
contractual workers were rescued by police. They were provided medical assistance, and later left the
factory premises,’

To counter this ‘law and order’ problem a local armed labour contractor Tirupati Enterprises was hired,
whose goons fired gun-shots and threw bottles at striking workers outside the Suzuki Motorcycle plant
injuring at least three workers. The police helped the attackers to get off without taking any action.

The corporate controlled media was fed by the management with all sorts of anti-worker news. The
reportage in the media since start of the strike had attempted to portray the incident as a case of ‘rise
in militant trade unionism and anti-development agenda of Left.’ One eminent national newspaper
wrote ‘Manufacturers are working on really thin margins,’ ‘Instead of going on strikes, which aren’t
beneficial for anyone, workers should rather be part of the growth process, which would be mean
higher benefits for them in the long run.’

On 14th October the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said regarding Maruti, ‘Labour unrest is a
matter of serious concerns, we need to address it efficiently.’ What does ‘efficiently’ mean is open to
interpretation. However after this observation the police came into action and arrested one office
member of the MSEU union from his house at 2 am, and raided the houses of other MSEU
representatives. More cops entered Manesar plant, and took down the workers’ food-kitchen, which
had supplied food to around 4,000 workers at Powertrain and Maruti Suzuki plant. Unconfirmed
reports said that around 1,500 to 2,500 police personnel went inside the Maruti factory. They shut
down access to water, canteen and toilets.

Earlier on the same day, according to the media report, over 100 analysts, investors and fund
managers of Maruti Suzuki participated in a conference call with Sonu Gujjar, president of Maruti
Suzuki Employees Union, to ‘talk about the situation’. It was later said that a deal was clinched
between them and Sonu Gujjar.

Strikes, negotiations and coercion continued till 21st October, when it was declared that an agreement
has been reached. The management agreed to take back 64 permanent workers, but 33 workers
mostly the frontline leaders of the new union remained suspended. The company flatly again refused
to recognise MSEU but agreed to set up a workers ‘grievance committee’ and ‘labour welfare
committee’, in which the Labour Officer from the state government will be ‘key comforting factor’.

Thus, ended the 55 days of workers struggle, that is being been pronounced as ‘the most significant
worker’s struggle in India in the last two decades’. Once again production of cars in the factory
resumed, in almost the same work conditions as before the strike.

A few days later it was reported that the management had given the Sonu Gujjar leaders of the new
trade union 40 Lakhs (4 million) rupees [some other media reported the sum to be one crore], similarly
other members were given sum ranging from 40 Lakhs to 12 lakhs, as golden handshakes to leave the
company and their comrades!
What does this entire drama point to?

This strike has to be seen against the greater backdrop of the bourgeoisie’s clamouring for a speedy
completion of the neo-liberal agenda. The capitalists have been demanding for more labour reform –
a euphemism for abolition of whatever labour welfare measures and laws that exist in the country.
This intention was behind the resoluteness of the Maruti management in not accepting any of the
workers’ demands. Maruti being the market leader in the burgeoning Indian automobile segment had
to take up the matter, in demanding for more ‘conducive’ labour reforms.

The struggle of the Maruti workers in particular and the solidarity that they received from the other
working class in general, revealed the sub-human work conditions prevalent in a company that is a
leader in automobiles and was touted as a model entity; on the other it raises some serious issues
confronting the labour movement in the country. That requires much thinking and introspection. The
Maruti workers’ movement should not be seen just as a trade union struggle. It was a struggle for the
right to organise, unionise and protest against exploitative conditions is crucial.

The strike failed to achieve the desired outcome, but it did manage to galvanise the workers. But in
absence of a radical left it could not be converted into a spearhead of wider working class struggle
against the whole neo-liberal regime and pro-investor governments of the capitalists.

Outcome of the strike

The 55 days of struggle brought in light the clear class difference not only in the factory but also
outside. The Government both central and state along with other agencies came out in full support of
the Maruti management. The media controlled by the capitalists broke all barriers of ‘neutral
journalism’ and openly sided with the management terming the entire episode as one created due to
the selfish and scrupulous workers incited by the leftist leaders, who want to destabilise the
phenomenal economic growth plan.

The compromising reformist left and social democratic TU federations also assisted the management
wholeheartedly, while claiming to champion the cause of the workers. Whenever workers pressure
was being built up and the management went on a backfoot, they rescued the latter and gave them
the vital sap in the form of ending the strike, or coming into agreement with the management, to
survive and crush the workers. They kept on harping that the workers are in a weak position when
actually they were at an advantage, thus causing widespread frustration and disillusionment. When it
was required to give a nationwide call to sustain the strike and call for national working class solidarity,
they were seen either negotiating with the management or giving desperate calls to the state and
national government to ‘intervene in the struggle to resolve the contentious issues amicably and
restore industrial peace’, knowing fully well with whom the sympathies of these governments lay.

Since the beginning the political demands of the workers were ignored and later dropped, converting
the entire struggle as that of resumption of suspension. Even the economic demands that one expects
from trade union practising pure economism were dropped and never taken up. This shows the level
of bureaucratism that has permeated into these unions, that Lenin called ‘the social mainstay of the
bourgeoisie’.

In December 1917 Lenin wrote: ‘One of the most important tasks of today, if not the most important,
is to develop [the] independent initiative of the workers, and of all the working and exploited people
generally, develop it as widely as possible in creative organisational work.’ (LCW, Vol. 26, p. 409.)
Today as during Lenin’s time the activities of the venal trade union bureaucrats and of the so-called
working class politicians need to be exposed whose loud talk of workers’ welfare is nothing but a mere
screen for continuing bourgeois labour policy.

The incident if on one hand exposed the reformist trade unions on the other hand it also showed the
weakness of the radical left politics. The non-revisionist TUs and left organisations grossly failed to
make a positive intervention, whatever intervention they made was to come in all out support for the
workers while subsuming their own polity behind the ‘spontaneity’ of the workers’ demands.
Politicising and turning the strike into mass struggle or taking it to higher level was not taken up and
they were also seen appealing to the Indian state for resolution. Subsuming Left ideology and making
it secondary to the dominant trend has only been counterproductive. In the 1980s A.K Roy
experimented with it, when he made the Marxist trend (represented by his Marxist Coordination
Committee) to play a secondary role giving primary position to the non-Marxist Jharkhand tribal
leadership, resulting in the entire Jharkhand movement losing revolutionary direction and the non-
Marxist leadership becoming easy prey to bourgeois politics. This had a major impact on the trade
union movement in the coalfields where the working class as a coherent unit got divided into
regionalism, making it easy for the government to decimate the gains that the workers had won after
long drawn struggle. In Maruti the radical left leadership similarly failed to politicise the Maruti leaders
and they also started to support just economic demands.

The old trade union style of only raising economic demands and creating a trade unionist devoid of
political consciousness, once again proved that it is incapable of taking any working class movement
to a higher level of struggle. It is time for the radical left groups and unions to introspect on the
conventional style of trade unionism. Any social movement cannot be digressed from politics, this is
what Marx has said and it has been proved true umpteen times. The day of ‘pure trade unionism’ is
over. In the face of the massive onslaught of international capital and the forces of neo-liberalism,
trade unionism devoid of politics cannot lead the working class nor bring any tangible benefit. On the
other hand they would only degenerate into a tool for the bourgeoisie to crush any working class
resentment. It is time to bring back radicalism in the trade union politics as taught by Marx and Lenin,
that was abandoned by the trade unions and communist party after the revisionists took over the
international communist movement. The result of this line has manifested in the shrinking of the
influence of the Marxist trade unions the world over much to the delight of the capitalists and the
bourgeois state apparatus.

The fight against opportunism and economism needs to be seriously thought over. The trade union
movement and the revolutionary forces have to struggle to balance the correlation of class forces that
today, due to the compromising attitude of the reformist left unions and those advocating neutrality
and de-politicisation of the working class, has tilted heavily in favour of the bourgeoisie.

The strike is the prologue to impending working class action. History is witness that violent repression
and the tyranny of the state and the capital have never been able to subjugate the might of advancing
workers. Maruti and similar strikes that will occur in future open up the possibility of working class
offensive, against the anti-worker regime of capital making headway to the revolutionary struggle of
the proletariat against capitalism.

The battle at Maruti might have temporarily suffered a setback but the struggle continues. As these
lines are being written, reports from the factory are again coming of workers realigning and re-
grouping to start the struggle from where it was abandoned. The workers have said that they will
restart the process of having their own union and continue to raise their demand. This reflects the
depth of militancy amongst the working class which is prevalent and growing, which cannot be
crushed by the bourgeois machinery.

The strategic position of the class has changed and hence the ability to bargain and fight. The fact
remains that at a global level the working class would continue to play a strategic role, but at the shop
floor level it no longer has the leverage as before. Those involved in Left and working class politics
have to initiate a longer discussion on this.

The future belongs to the working class.

Questions:
1. How organised trade union impact industry and economy as a whole?
2. How do Trade union federations contribute in strengthening the trade union movement in
India?
3. How industrial unrest in one industry impacts other industries to move out from that
geographical area?
4. How political intervention solve industrial unrest?
5. What inferences you can draw from the above case? Identify and explain.

References
1. Whistle Blower Policy, http://www.marutisuzuki.com/whistle-blower-policy.aspx, accessed
November 20, 2011.
2. Transcript of the interview available at Money Control site,
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/maruti-strike-normalcy-may-be-restored-
soon-says-aituc_557967.html, accessed November 20, 2011.
3. See pamphlet released by Workers’ Unity Trade Union published in Revolutionary Democracy
Vol. XVI, No. 1, April, 2010 site at http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv16n1/rico.htm,
accessed November 20, 2011.
4. Press Trust of India release, 14th of June 2011.
5. Maruti attempts to curtail union power in Manesar, Sunday Guardian, http://www.sunday-
guardian.com/investigation/maruti-attempts-to-curtail-union-power-in-manesar.