More labour trouble at India's Maruti

More labour trouble loomed for India's top carmaker Maruti as workers said on Tuesday they would back demands for the reinstatement of employees who were fired after a deadly riot in July.

The worker's body representing employees at the Manesar plant, near New Delhi, where the riot took place said they would support a planned two-day hunger strike by dismissed colleagues who want their jobs returned.

"We will not take part in the hunger strike on Wednesday and Thursday but we support the protesters," Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union general secretary Kuldeep Janghu told AFP.

The company said it had already rejected the demands for reinstatement by the dismissed workers who are accused of chasing supervisors at the plant with iron rods in the unrest that left a personnel manager dead and injured close to 100 other executives.

"Some of these people have been accused of murder and arson -- the company has already dismissed them and filed cases against them," said a Maruti spokesman who asked not to be named in line with company policy.

Maruti fired 546 workers after the riot at the plant, which has a history of troubled labour relations, and later gave other employees a hefty pay hike in a bid to end discontent.

The riot, which was unprecedented in the company's three-decade history, saw India's leading carmaker by sales lock out workers at the plant for a month and cost Maruti some $250 million in lost production.

Maruti, which has another plant in nearby Gurgaon, is the largest overseas unit of its Japanese parent Suzuki Motor and contributes over half of its net profit, the spokesman said.

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