Toyota staff return to work after strike

BANGALORE,  

Japanese car maker Toyota said employees at its strike-hit complex in southern India returned to work today, ending a five-week standoff.

Unionised employees had refused to go back to their jobs at the twin plant complex near high-tech hub Bangalore following the end to an eight-day company lockout last month, amid a dispute over pay and other issues.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Ltd is the Indian unit of the world’s biggest car maker. “All the workmen have returned to work and things are returning to normal,” a company spokesman said.

The union said there was still no settlement of the pay row over which the two sides have been at loggerheads for nearly a year.

But the dispute has been “referred to the industrial tribunal for adjudication”, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Union general secretary R. Satish told AFP.

Union members voted late yesterday to “return to work in the interests of all,” Satish said.

Toyota carried out limited production during the standoff using non-unionised engineers, supervisors and other workers at the plant established in 1997.

But it said the dispute had sharply curtailed output at the plant, which employs some 6,400 workers.