Chennai: Seeking to draw the attention of the central and state governments to their plight, employees of Nokia India’s manufacturing facility at Sriperumbudur on Monday staged a one day fast demanding job security.
More than 3,000 employees, mostly in the 20-30 age group and a majority of them women, wearing black badges, took part in the protest, spearheaded by the Nokia India Thozhilalargal Sangam (employees union) near the State Guest House here.
“The central and state governments should come forward and ensure that there is no job loss due to the proposed transfer of assets of Nokia to Microsoft (as per the $7. 2billion deal),” union honorary president A. Soundararajan, MLA, said.
The employees are up against the company’s indication of “retrenchment or closure of the plant.”
“We do not want any job losses. We have been working at the plant since it began operations at Sriperumbudur,” an employee said.
Asked whether there has been decline in production of handsets at the facility, considering the fact that it is one of the biggest units for Nokia globally, the employee who did not want to be named, said the entire
“Asha” range of mobile phones has been shifted to other manufacturing plants while some machineries shipped to Vietnam and other countries.
“We are assembling phones here. From production of 13 million handsets per month, it has dropped to only 4 million units per month. Due to decline in production, the three shift operation has been cut to two shifts,” the employee said.
The Union, is backed by Centre of Indian Trade Unions, and other member unions of the CITU area also supporting the employees in the hunger-strike. The employees said they would decide on their next move this week. Earlier, Nokia India Employees Union president M. Saravana Kumar said they would meet the senior labour and industries department officials soon seeking the government’s support.
