Slowdown-hit Tata Motors disengages most temporary workers

Ranchi, Nov 4 (IANS) Hit by a slowdown, automobile giant Tata Motors has asked most of its temporary workers not to report for work, even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had appealed to India Inc Monday to refrain from knee-jerk actions like large-scale lay-offs.

According to Chandrabhan Prasad, secretary of the Telco workers' Union, some 700 workers, who were not on permanent rolls of the company, were asked to disengage from work Monday.

'Now, all the 3,000 temporary employees have been asked not to report to work. The decision has been taken considering the fact that production has been reduced in Tata Motors,' Prasad said.

'Like other companies, Tata Motors too engages temporary workmen - by definition, on temporary assignment - and they are disengaged after the completion of the specific job or time period,' the company said, responding to a query from IANS.

'The information you cite refers to temporary workmen at our Jamshedpur plant. In this financial year since April to October, the Jamshedpur plant has engaged, on an average, 1,455 temporary workmen every month,' the statement said.

In November, the company said, 60 temporary workmen had been engaged.

'Simultaneously, those temporary workmen, whose specific jobs or time period have got over, have been disengaged. They could be re-engaged in future based on requirement.'

The company also said that the temporary workmen at Jamshedpur were the wards of the plant's employees and had been trained under the Tata Motors Skill Training Programme.

'As and when, permanent positions open up, such temporary workmen are absorbed,' the statement said, adding 250 such individuals were taken on permanent roles in October, 422 last financial year and 300 during the preceding year.

Tata Motors had earlier reported a 20 percent decline in vehicle sales in October at 39,729 units, against 49,354 in the like month of the previous year.

'The automobile industry remains severely impacted with continued lack of financing and high interest rates. The quarter was also impacted by high input costs, and the company is aggressively pursuing its cost reduction initiatives,' the company had said Friday.

The maker of the small car Nano, which was plagued by agitations at its Singur plant in West Bengal throughout the second quarter before deciding to relocate, saw a 6.1 percent increase in revenues, when compared to the second quarter last fiscal.