Labour unrest forces Toyota to shut 2 plants

Mumbai: Toyota Kirloskar Motor on Sunday declared lockout at its two manufacturing plants at Bidadi near Bengaluru, following the failure of talks between the management and the union over wage negotiations.

The production at the two plants having an installed capacity of 3,10,000 units, has been disrupted since the past 25 days. “The management and the union have been discussing the charter of demands for the period FY14 for the past 10 months. As a bipartite agreement was not reached, the Karnataka labour department has conducted seven tripartite meetings to reach a settlement. But the conciliation efforts have not yet resulted in an agreement, leading to the lockout,” the Japanese auto major said in a statement.

The statement also said even as the talks were on, a section of the workers, instigated by the union, has resorted to deliberate stoppage of the production line, and threatened supervisors and continuously disrupted business for the past 25 days.

“In this background, the company is left with no other option but to declare a lockout to ensure the safety of its workers and management personnel,” the statement concluded.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor is a 89:11 joint venture between the world’s largest auto company Toyota and the Pune-based Kirloskar Group, respectively. Set up in October 1997, the two plants at Bidadi employs over 6,400 people and has an installed capacity of 3,10,000 units per annum. The plant rolled out the first car in December 1999.

While the first facility has an installed capacity of 1,00,000 units, the second plant has an installed capacity of 2,10,000 units.