Strike at Tata Motors' Sanand plant

Tata Motors, which is gearing up to rollout its new hatchback Tiago from Sanand facility in Gujarat, on Tuesday saw over 400 workers go on a flash strike on the issue of re-instatement of 28 of their suspended colleagues.

“In all, 422 employees of the 2,200 working in the plant are on strike since late Monday night,” M S Patel, deputy labour commissioner, Ahmedabad, told mediapersons outside the Tata Motors plant in Sanand. “They want management to re-instate their colleagues.”

Giving details, Patel said that the trouble began about two months ago, when two of the workers were suspended allegedly on disciplinary grounds.

Meanwhile, Tata Motors in its statement said that around 300 workmen at their Sanand plant had gone on an “illegal” strike on February 22, 2016 “demanding re-instatement of the workmen suspended (pending enquiry) for serious misconduct.”

While the management team is continuing to make efforts to talk to the workmen on strike and convince them to restore normalcy, plant operations are simultaneously continuing.”

Beginning its operations in 2010, the Sanand plant of Tata has seen ups and downs in production of Nano. Against the installed capacity of 250,000 cars per annum, it is reported to have produced roughly 42,560 Nano cars in the two years between January 2014 and December 2015, after the demand for once dubbed as cheapest dream car to have ever produced.