Worker’s strike called off at Bajaj Auto’s Chakan plant

Pune, August 13, 2013: The 50-day long strike at Bajaj Auto’s Chakan plant has been finally called off by the Vishwa Kalyan Kamgar Sanghatna (VKKS) today. Though none of the demands made by the worker’s union were met, the striking workers will now resume their jobs at the facility from tomorrow morning (Wednesday, 14 August). The ‘unconditional’ withdrawal of strike prior to the upcoming festive season is a big relief for the Pune-based bike maker as it can now concentrate on boosting its production from its Chakan facility.

Workers reporting back to work from tomorrow at Chakan will also relieve the engineers and workers at BAL’s Waluj plant subsequently who were loaded with an additional production of nearly 1000 – 1200 Pulsar bikes per day.

However, sources say that Dilip Pawar, president, VKKS continues to stay firm on the demands made by the union earlier. On August 5, Rajiv Bajaj, managing director, Bajaj Auto had issued an ultimatum to the striking workers with a deadline of August 12 wherein he had mentioned that the company would be compelled to mull over shifting out upto 50 percent of production operations from the Chakan facility to other plants.

In an official statement from the company, Bajaj said that “I am very pleased that the VKKS union has unconditionally called off their strike at Chakan; more importantly, I hope that their decision is a reflection of their understanding, however late, of their erroneous choice of direction.On behalf of the management I assure that all the 22 workmen who aresuspended with pending enquiries, their cases will be considered objectively and sympathetically in the collective interest of allstakeholders.”

Yesterday (August 12), around 940 workers reported to work at Chakan facility which rolled out 2,100 units while another 1,000 Pulsars bikes were rolled out from the Waluj facility. The Chakan plant has an annual capacity of rolling out 1.2 million motorcycles across Pulsar, KTM, and Avenger brands.