Demand for dignity at heart of Samsung workers strike

By Sushmita V

On 9th September, 1500 workers in the Samsung India Electronics factory in Sriperumbudur in the outskirts of Chennai started an indefinite strike. The immediate cause of the strike is intimidation of union members by the management, with threats of violence.

This moment has been in the making for a long time because of the working conditions in the Samsung factory. Working hours are long and include compulsory overtime. The wages at 25,000 per month are low compared to wages of permanent workers in other factories. Workers said that there are no mechanisms for grievance redressal of workers, they do not get leave for family emergencies, and the management gave “punishments” to workers where they are confined to a room alone for the whole working day for many days.

According to the workers, the management has consistently refused to negotiate with workers, which led them to forming a union under the leadership of Centre of India Trade Unions (CITU), 3 months ago. The registration of the union is pending for the last 80 days, which is much beyond the legally mandated maximum of 45 days.
In the meantime, the management started threatening workers for being in the union. The management even went to the workers’ families to intimidate them and make them leave the union. They started an outright war against the union on the factory floor, with open threats of violence. In response, the workers decided to go on strike.

Comrade Muthukumar, president of Samsung India Workers Union(SIWU) and state secretary of CITU, pointed out that on 9th September, the intimidation and threats of violence on the factory floor were such that getting out and starting a strike was essential. Otherwise, workers may have been provoked into violence or framed in the violence, which may lead to very bad consequences for workers. Complaining to the police is also not an option, as we expect police to support the management.

Samsung has sued CITU for starting an “illegal” strike.The police have assisted Samsung by intimidating the striking workers. On 16th September, the police detained more than a 100 workers, who had gathered to march to the district collector’s office. The permission for the march had been canceled at the last minute. The police also illegally detained Union president Muthukumar. His phone and bike were taken away, and nobody was informed of the location of where he was being held.

samsung workers strike 1 — Photo Credit : Santosh kumar

Production in the factory has been seriously affected by the strike. At the start of the strike, there were 1760 permanent workers engaged in production and about 30 contract workers in loading and unloading. Since the strike started, the workers in loading and unloading have been called in for production. The main plant does only assembly, with parts supplied by various factories in the area. Workers from the supplier factories have also been called in to assist in production. With these reinforcements, production is running at less than 20 % capacity, according to Comrade Muthukumar.

Many of the striking workers have been employed in Samsung for 10-15 years. Their move to unionize, 3 months ago, has been the result of working conditions becoming unbearable. Their work day was 9 hours long, and in addition, there were 2 hours more of compulsory overtime. After the overtime ended at 7 pm, the company bus left at 7:30 pm, transporting workers to distant villages with the commute taking up about 2.5 hours. “Taking commute into account, the worker is giving away 16 hours of his day to factory work. In the remaining 8 hours, does he sleep, or eat or spend time with his family”, asks Muthukumar.

samsung workers strike 2A — Photo Credit : Santosh kumar

Says one of the striking workers, “up till the pandemic, we would be called in to work on Saturdays when there was demand. Typically, we worked every other Saturday. But after the pandemic, we had to work every Saturday. We asked the management to restore the old arrangement of working alternate Saturdays, but the management was not ready to accept our demand. Then, to compensate for working on all Saturdays, we asked for a wage hike, which they also refused. That prompted us to form a union”.
Another worker said, “We have no way of complaining about anything. We asked the management why we don’t get the holidays which the staff members get. In response, since the last two years, the management started making two separate leave calendars for staff and workers.”

Workers were also “punished” if they complained or asked questions. One of the workers, Gopal (name changed), who has faced this punishment, said that he was made to sit alone in a room for the entire working day for two weeks. “There was a glass window through which passers-by in the factory could see me, making me feel like a wrong-doer. Over the course of sitting there, I myself started believing I had done something wrong”, he said.

In reality, Gopal’s wrong-doing was complaining to HR about a supervisor who was verbally abusive. “I was hoping to get my department changed, because I couldn’t take his behaviour any more. His behaviour was harsh, and he would set me impossible targets.” When he went to HR, the case was turned around. A case was made against Gopal, saying he was not meeting targets, and he was punished. The incident happened two years ago, and since then, Gopal has felt depressed working in the factory.

Workers said, “the management would openly say that they did not care about us, and they only cared about maximizing profits”. Given the management’s recalcitrant attitude, workers formed a union to get legal help.

samsung workers strike 3 — Photo Credit : Santosh kumar

However, unionizing has had the effect of making the workers more conscious of their rights. As an example, they said, “We learnt that if an in-service worker died, the company had to pay them an amount of Rs 25 lakh. Three workers had died in the last few years. The families lived in distant villages, and we found out that the company had only given them 7 lakhs. But in the few days, after we found out, the company quietly paid the remaining amount!”

The mainstream media has been critical of the strike, saying it “puts Tamil Nadu’s dominance in the electronics industry at stake”, and at the national level, as “casting a shadow on PM Modi’s plan to court foreign investors to ‘Make in India’ in the electronics sector.”

Muthukumar says, “what is the point of investment which only benefits the corporates? Trade union movements, by pushing for economic growth and job security of workers, are the ones who are truly working for a more equal economic growth in the country.”

The demands of the Samsung workers include hiking the monthly wage from 25,000 to 36,000 over three years,ecognition of the workers union,and fewer working hours, including having Saturdays off.

Samsung workers had been working for low wages for a long time. But what pushed them over the edge was a feeling that they were being humiliated and treated unfairly, and being denied dignity.

(Sushmitha V is a social activist and works for Workers Unity Tamil)

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