Business & Finance

Strike ends at India's Maruti Suzuki car group

Published Updated

Management agreed to reinstate 11 employees sacked during the protest, but refused to accede to the main demand for a new labour union, a company spokesman said.

"The strike has ended," the spokesman from Maruti Suzuki told AFP. "We have decided to reinstate workers sacked earlier and also taken a lenient view against them."

Production at the Manesar facility in the northern state of Harayana will resume on Saturday, he added.

The company is estimated to have lost nearly $93 million during the strike, which hit the production of about 12,600 cars.

The deadlock ended at midnight Thursday after Haryana state chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda met senior management and union leaders earlier in the day as the stoppage threatened to flare-up into a wider industrial dispute.

The Japanese-controlled firm produces 1.2 million cars a year in India at Manesar and nearby Gurgaon.

While management did not agree to the workers' new union, it has allowed labour representatives to sit on a governing council where issues can be discussed, the spokesman said.

Maruti shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange were up on the news, adding 2.35 points, or 0.20 percent, to 1,191.80 rupees.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011