Hero Honda Motors may take the heat of labour troubles at Exide Industries? Bawal plant in Haryana. The largest two-wheeler maker in India receives a major chunk of its battery supply from this plant, where workers have gone on a go-slow agitation. Apart from Hero Honda, the Bawal plant also supplies Honda Motor Cycles and Scooters, which is fully owned by Honda Motor of Japan.
According to company officials, Exide had negotiated a three-year wage agreement with its 150-odd workers in October 2009. However, in less than six months, a section of the workers wanted the agreement revised to secure higher wages, a demand the company is unlikely to entertain, according to sources. Senior Exide officials have already met Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to break the stalemate.
?Some workers want to violate the agreement. This is completely illegal?production has been on a go-slow for more than a month now. We are looking to negotiate with the government to settle the issue because they were also a party to the agreement,? a company official said.
When contacted, an Exide spokesperson confirmed the development. ?Yes; there is disruption at the Bawal plant. We are looking to resolve the issue with the government,? he said. The Bawal plant of Exide Industries supplies batteries to Hero Honda Motors and Honda Motor Cycles and Scooters, while its Pune plant supplies Bajaj Auto. Production at the plant has slowed down since March 2010.
A Hero Honda spokesperson said that the company?s plans are made in advance, but labour troubles have restricted the supply of batteries. ?However, due to certain IR issues at our suppliers? end, we have not been getting our full supply of batteries. This is certainly impacting our despatches. We are engaging with our suppliers to ensure that the issues are resolved at the earliest and the despatches are back to normal,? the spokesperson said. The incident comes barely six months after key auto ancillary units in the Gurgaon-Manesar stretch ? Rico Auto, AG Industries and Hema Engineering ? went on a strike that affected production across automakers, forcing many of them to look for alternative suppliers or simply cut production. In all the cases, the workers were demanding better wages.
