Mamata Banerjee intervenes after Hindustan Motors shuts Ambassador factory

Kolkata: The West Bengal Labour department has convened a tripartite meeting on Tuesday to break the impasse on Hindustan Motors which declared suspension of work at Uttarpara plant on Saturday. Facing acute shortage of funds and lack of demand for its Ambassador cars, the Hindustan Motors management declared the suspension of work throwing into uncertainty the future of around 2,500 employees, including both workers and managerial personnel.

“The Labour Department has convened a tripartite meeting on tuesday at the deputy labour commissioner’s office on Hindustan Motors,” Labour commissioner Javed Akhtar said. “The company has declared suspension of work at the Uttarpara plant. We can always dissuade the Hindustan Motors management to lift the lock-out,” Mr Akhtar said.

HR professionals told press that no management was able to declare a closure or lock-out due to reasons like funds crunch or lack of demand of products. “In case of financial crisis or demand fall, the workers are not at all responsible and it is the failure of management to study the market conditions and act accordingly,” a senior HR professional said.

Declaring a lock-out for reasons like these were not legally tenable as they were not labour-related and could be contested in court, he said. Meanwhile, the company maintained that it was not possible to run the factory as it was suffering losses of Rs 7 crore per month and net worth had turned negative suffering losses for the last 15 years.

The company had been scouting for new investors for fund infusion in Hindustan Motors. Earlier, promoter and chairman of the company C.K. Birla had resigned, and later CEO and Managing Director Uttam Bose had stepped down.