Amid Congress backed labour unrest, GM officials meet Modi

General Motors India officials today met Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and senior Gujarat officials amid continuing 9-day long labour unrest at the car maker’s Halol facility that has resulted in production loss of over 700 cars so far.

The company has given an ultimatum to about 250 striking workers threatening termination of services unless they returned to duty by Friday.

When asked by an agency about the meeting, GM India Vice-President P Balendran said: “Yes, we have just met him and other officials. But this meeting was mainly for our additional investments in the state for commercial vehicles from our partner SAIC’s stable and it was scheduled before the strike.

“Obviously, the Chief Minister inquired about the strike and asked (that) what is going on there… Government has been very pro-active in dealing with the issue.”

He said the government has declared the strike illegal and imposed Section 144 of IPC near the plant location to prevent any possible gathering of agitators.

The plant has one registered workers body — GM Employees’ Union. The company claims that a new union, formed under the aegis of Congress-backed Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), has been spearheading the agitation.

This is the second such incident at Halol in five months. The plant came to a halt for four days when workers went on a strike from October 29, 2010, demanding wage hikes and GM India’s total production losses amounted to 450 units.