Tata Motors union calls off four-day strike at Jamshedpur plant

Mumbai: Tata Motors and its temporary workers at the Jamshedpur plant who were on a strike since Tuesday on Saturday agreed to end the four-day impasse. The ice-breaker came in after the unions agreed to the management offer to take 200 of the over 4,500 temporary workers on to the rolls annually.

At the reconciliation meeting held on Friday, the workers had turned down instead asked for upgrade of at least 500 workers annually. Following the settlement, the company said, the plant has resumed normal production. The plant makes around 400 units of commercial vehicles a day, which had come down to 60-70 during the strike.

"We've successfully concluded our discussions with the workers representatives and they've appreciated our offer of providing permanency to 200 workers per year as we've been following in the past. "Following this, the section of the temporary workers, who were instigated and misguided by the vested parties have ended the agitation and the matter stands resolved," Tata Motors told PTI through an official statement.

When contacted workers also confirmed the development and said a 10-member team representing their cause met with the management and resolved all the issues earlier in the day.

The plant is functioning normally and to partly meet the production of around 700 units, the union has decided to work tomorrow as well.

Around 4,500 temporary workers, around 600 of them women, with active support of a union of the Jamshedpur plant were on strike from Tuesday protesting non-payment of revised three-year wage agreement signed with permanent workers' union early last month and higher incentives on par with the permanent workers and making at least 500 of them into rolls annually.

According to union leaders, the strike so far has resulted in production loss of around 700 vehicles a month. The plant makes around 9,000 units a month in three shifts. As per union, while around 4,500 permanent workers at the plant were given a wage hike of Rs 12,500 per month, the temporary workers' were given only Rs 1,500-2,000.

But when the wages were paid early this week, the permanent workers got only Rs 6,500 extra whereas the temporary ones were paid as per the now-defunct agreement, they claimed.  A permanent worker on an average gets Rs 30,000-32,000 a month, while a temporary worker gets Rs 12,000-13,000, the sources said.