CHENNAI: Unrest is brewing among the Samsung India workers in Sriperumbudur again over alleged harassment of 35 workers, who were the face of the month-long protest in September, by supervisors and management of the company.
While one of the workers allegedly attempted suicide on Tuesday because of the harassment, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), which has been fighting for the registration and recognition of Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU) at the electronic giant’s TN plant, has said that its members will launch a ‘canteen boycott’ protest at the plant on Thursday.
Members of the CITU said the worker who allegedly attempted suicide was internally transferred to a different department recently. He is currently stable, they said.
“While all the employees are back at work, the company is specifically targeting workers who played a key role in the September protest. They have also been consistently persuading the workers, under the pretext of holding training sessions, to shun the labour union and instead join the internal workers committee,” a CITU member said.
In a show of strength, the 1,300 members of the Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU) will refrain from eating at the company canteen on Thursday. E Muthukumar, CITU’s Kancheepuram secretary and SIWU president told TNIE, “The company is pushing us towards another protest.”
CITU also said that they were yet to receive a written response to the charter of demands that the SIWU had placed before the company when they agreed to give up the protest in October. At the conciliatory talks at the end of the protest, it was agreed that Samsung would submit a written response to the demands before the conciliation officer.
Meanwhile, Samsung said in an official statement that they had been made aware of the incident involving the worker at the Chennai factory and that they are closely monitoring the situation.
(Assistance for those having suicidal thoughts is available on TN’s health helpline 104 and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050)