Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting shuts down Mysuru unit

Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting, situated on a 7.5-acre plot in Hootagalli industrial area in the city, has declared a lockout since Monday night, stating the “factory is financially unviable.”

The unit has 84 permanent workers and 66 contract workers. With this, Wipro becomes the second company in Mysuru to declare a lockout in the recent times after Falcon Tyres.

The employees have been staging an indefinite protest in front of the company since Monday night. “We have been betrayed by the company. It has not issued any notice to us. The management says the notices have been sent to our residential address by  post, but we have not received any notice,” the employees said.

The notice on the main gate of the company reads: “The factory has become unviable from financial and business point of view.” It also states that a notice of closure has been served to the state government on May 2. But, Assistant Labour Commissioner Thammanna said he did not have any information about the closure of the company.

In 1998, Wipro bought Metal Lamp and Caps that was started in 1995. Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting, as a subsidiary of Wipro Enterprises, was launched in 1999. It was manufacturing incandescent bulbs (now outdated), tube lights, CFL bulbs, and LED.

Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting said in Bengaluru that the changing market and technology landscape in the lighting business marked by a sharp decline in the demand for CFL products and increasing preference for LED products over the past two years has rendered continued operations of the Mysuru manufacturing unit commercially unviable. Over the past two years, reduced demand saw production at the facility drop sharply.

The company has evaluated all possible options and kept the plant operational for over an year at low production levels that are economically unviable. Earlier, this year, all 84 workmen were offered a voluntary retirement scheme. “As required, we notified the government and relevant authorities of the decision to shut down the plant two months ago and have complied with all regulatory requirements,” it said.

The employees said a year ago, the company had 171 permanent employees and 509 contract staff. “While 66 contract employees were retained, 87 permanent employees were coerced to take voluntary retirement. Since 1999, the salaries were revised only once in four years, and the last revision was in 2012. A meeting was convened with the management on Monday, seeking a pay hike. But at the meeting, we were told that we need not attend work from Tuesday, as the company is being locked out, due to recurring losses,” the employees said.