Workers at Sanmina Protest Against the Anti-labour Policies

Demanding a wage increase, union recognition through secret ballot, repeal of anti-labour policies, more than 280 workers in Tamil Nadu unit of Sanmina, a global electronics manufacturing services provider, have been on protest since November 21. The protesters include 30 workers who are on “compulsory rest” and facing various suspensions.

Along with other demands, the workers also demanded the wage for 21 days which was withheld for the four-day strike.

The workers have decided to protest after the endless tripartite conciliation meetings between workers, management and the Labour Department, yielded no progress in the resolution of the long pending demands.

On November 21, in an attempt to stop the strike, workers and management met, both bilaterally and in front of Labour Department. The management, however, was not ready to accept the demands of the workers. While the workers demanded Rs 15,000 increase in the salary, the management offered an increase of only Rs 3,500.

Following the series of meetings, the workers have stuck to an increase of at least Rs 8,000, which would place their wages at around Rs 21,000.

As the workers took the wage issues to the management, they affronted the workers by saying that either they put in more overtime work or pick the voluntary retirement scheme. So far, 150 workers have been ‘retired’ at the young age of 27 due to the anti-labour policy of the company.

The workers who have over 10 years of experience are earning only Rs 12,000 to Rs 16,000 in the factory. The company had demanded three years of experience in electronics field while recruiting them, which puts these workers at 13+ years of experience. In an effort to attract the talent, the company had given almost twice the wages compared to other factories in the neighbourhood (Foxconn, Nokia Siemens), when it had started in 2008. However, now a worker in Nokia Siemens earns around Rs 24,000, whereas these workers earn half their wage, the tnlabour.in report says.

The company started to take its revenge on workers since March 27 of this year, when the workers demonstrated a sit-in protest demanding recognition for their union. Following the sit-in, over 20 workers, especially the union office bearers, have been placed on ‘compulsory rest’. While the management gives them full wages, they are not allowed in the factory premises and they are not entitled to any incentives and other perks that are available to the workers. The management has also suspended four workers on various pretexts.

When the local management continued its negligence on the issues of workers, the workers tried to communicate through emails with the parent company which is based in San Jose, the United States. But the local management has not been happy with this attempt by workers and believe that the workers' emails have triggered some questions from the parent company to the local management. The corporate management has not officially responded to the workers till now.