Chennai: Royal Enfield employees resumed their agitation after their management laid down a rule forbidding workers to carry mobile phones inside the factory.
Meanwhile, around 600 members of the Indian Yamaha Employees Union affiliated to CITU protested in front of the Kancheepuram bus terminus on Tuesday morning.
The protest was triggered after Yamaha India terminated two workers Raja Manikandan and Prakash from the company citing reduction of manpower on September 20.
The agitators urged reinstatement of the two workers and accept their union as one of the workers’ union in the company.
After court orders were passed asking employees not to protest within the plant, the employees stepped out from 8 am to 5 pm on Tuesday near the Kancheepuram bus terminal to protest. However, as the protest was not conducted after police permission, all 600 of the employees were arrested. They have been kept in a marriage hall nearby and will be released in the evening, police sources said.
At Oragadam, the protests at Royal Enfield were on. “We have been allowed with mobile phones for last five years,” Working People Trade Union Council and Royal Enfield Employees’ Union Vice-President R Sampath said.
“The condition by the management was not acceptable to us and from today we are resuming our protest.”
The employees of India Yamaha, subsidiary of Japan-headquartered Yamaha Motor Corporation, were on strike from September 21 seeking reinstatement of dismissed employees while the Royal Enfield employees, who took to the protest a day later, are seeking recognition of their union.
Royal Enfield, in a statement to the exchanges, said the strike has affected its production and that the company has suffered a loss of over 10,000 units. The factory, however, had said in a petition to the Madras high court that it does not recognise the Royal Enfield employees union participating in the strike. After a four-day strike, the unions called it off based on an advisory letter from the state labour department. It remains to be seen what the next course of action will be for the union on Wednesday. Yamaha, however, has not acknowledged the protests for the last 10 days. Vinoth G, public relations officer for Yamaha, said he has received no information.
