It was his first visit to the Pune after taking over as managing director of Tata Motors. Prakash Telang, the new MD, got a warm reception form the Tata Motors workers at the Pimpri plant. The Tata Motors Employees Union feted him and Ravi Pisharodi, head of the CV business division, at a special event organised by the company management and its union together. Unlike their counterparts in the top global automotive companies, the union appears to be more pragmatic and in tune with the changing times. Instead of a confrontationist role, they may be seeing value and their own future in working with the company especially in these tough times. Even giants fail and become bankrupt, when unbending unions and their demands turn companies unviable.
Normalcy in industrial relations was not achieved at Tata Motors without sweat. It was Ratan Tata?s first big victory and what he did with Tata Motors after that is history.
This was a mammoth change from the Tata Motors of yesteryears. The destiny of Tata Motors would have been very different had it gone the other way. It was exactly 20 years ago when 5,000 plus workers of Tata Motors went on an unprecedented hunger strike in Pune. Rest of the industrial unions too joined in to show solidarity, threatening industrial peace in the city. Ratan Tata stood his ground. He refused to recognise the Telco Kamgaar Sanghatna and its leader and refused to negotiate with them. He would rather shut down the plant than buckle. Those were the times when union leaders wielded tremendous power and would boast of how they decided how many trucks rolled out of the assembly line.
It was Sumant Moolgaonkar?s vision that brought Tata Motors to Pune and the workers stir of 1989 threatened to end it all. Had Tata Motors conflict with its workers got escalated it would have not only hurt the company but it could have shattered the industrial peace and put Pune on the black list. And Pune would never have been a destination for automotive or manufacturing industry investments. Existing units that depended on Tata Motors would have died and turned the industrial estates into ghost towns.
But for Tata Motors? sake and for Pune?s sake and for the sake of the autocomponent industry and in the interest of the workers themselves, Tata Motors did not go away. The Telco Kamgaar Sanghatan withdrew the month-long strike. The assembly lines rolled out truck chassis. It was a new beginning. A turning point for both the company and the city. The company went from strength to strength, crossing many a milestones along the way. Its wages set benchmarks; it is also known to be more humane and caring and workers would still consider their life made if they get to work with Tata Motors.
Old timers who were with the company when the strike took place do admit that they did see a big change in terms of attitude of the Tata Motors management after the strike. They say they were treated better and enjoyed a better work atmosphere. Even researches that have delved into the strike and its impact have said that it was a different shop floor at the company. The company?s senior management took the effort to reach out to the shop floor and the workers and avoid escalation of tension. Also, as a rule no external leaders are allowed to head the union.
Telang, who has been with the company for 35 years, would have seen those tumultuous times and would have appreciated the warm homecoming he received. He needs all the support he can get from them for the battle ahead. Telang himself said at the reception that when Tata Motors set up the unit in Pune, there were many big names here then. But none of them even exist anymore. However Tata
Motors has flourished. Today it is unimaginable to visualise a Tata Motors without the Indica and the Tata Nano. Or for that matter, a Pune without Mercedes Benz, Fiat, General Motors and Volkswagen.