Tata Nano Tata Nano

The tripartite talks held by the state labour department on Friday failed to break new ground for the 4-week long Tata Nano worker agitation, what with the Tata Motors asked for striking workmen to back up their newly registered union’s leaders with signatures. Tata asked for signatures of 70 per cent of striking workmen that they will unanimously accept the outcome of further negotiation done by the newly registered union and referred to it as ‘adhoc’. With the failure of talks, the Tata Nano workers have decided to go ahead with a ‘mega protest rally’ consisting of 400 odd striking Tata Nano workers, representatives of 22 central and city-based trade union and farmers from nearby villages outside Sanand GIDC gate no 2.

This comes a day after the state labour department registered the Tata Nano workers union- ‘Bhartiya Kamdar Ekta Sangh Sanand’ although Tata Motors in an official release said that it did not receive any communication about the registration of a union for our Sanand plant.

MS Patel, Assistant Labour Commissioner told the paper that Tata officials had been verbally apprised of the registration of the new Tata Motors Workers union on Thursday. A press release from Tata Motors on Friday cited “Tata Motors thanks the DLC Ahmedabad for mediating when he called the meeting with the worker representatives to resolve this illegal strike. The meeting concluded with the understanding that the adhoc Workmen Committee will tomorrow(Friday) submit the authorisation that clearly shows at least 70 per cent of the striking workmen authorised this committee for future negotiations, with a meeting planned for next week.”

The state labour department has again planned for another round of tripartite talks between the Tata Motors officials and the workers on March 21st, with workers agreeing to get the required signatures of other striking workmen.

“In the recent talks Tata Motors management asked us to get signatures of all the 422 striking workers stating that we are representing them and that we have the final call in the negotiation process which will happen again on Monday. The management did not even speak on the issue of the reinstatement of the 26 workers that has been our primary demand. The management is simply delaying the negotiation process by coming up with new issues, whereas we told them of our readiness to resume work tomorrow if they resolve our demand. We will go ahead with our mega protest rally outside Sanand GIDC as planned and are expecting 1500 to 2000 people from civil society and 22 central and city-based trade union and farmers to support us in it,” said Hitesh Rabari, one of the representatives from among the striking Tata workers.

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