The tale of two American auto giants and their former Indian workers Premium

GM Employees Union on indefinite hunger strike for justice; retrenched workers doing odd jobs; GM disputes claims; Ford workers undergoing upskilling/reskilling training in EVs; Hyundai to acquire GM's Talegaon plant.

For over a week now, the General Motors Employees Union, comprising of a little over 1,000 retrenched workers from American automobile major General Motors India’s Talegaon plant in Maharashtra, are on an indefinite relay hunger strike. The workers are seeking reinstatement and are attempting to catch the attention of the state government. They allege that they were illegally terminated by the company in 2020.

Having lost hope from all sides, and to protest in the Gandhian way, they commenced their strike on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation.

Hundreds of their family members including spouses, mothers and daughters are seen camping there from time to time and so are union leaders of other nearby factories expressing solidarity and boosting their morale to continue their fight for workers’ rights and justice.

The venue of the strike has started drawing crowds, including politicians from opposition parties, but authorities from the ruling dispensation are conspicuous by their absence.

In the last nearly three years, eight of the workers among those who did not accept separation packages from General Motors India, have died due to some reason or the other including one or more in accidents while undertaking delivery jobs for applications, said an Union member.

The rest who once worked on the shop floor manufacturing swanky automobiles for the domestic as well as exports markets are economically impoverished and doing odd jobs to make a living.

“Our career and lives have been ruined. No one is giving us a job in any factory because we challenged GM’s decision in the industrial and labour courts. The laid-off employees are doing menial jobs like selling fruits and vegetables and some have become waiters in restaurants. Most have become delivery boys for Swiggy and Zomato and for other logistics companies,” a retrenched worker said asking not to be identified as feared being targeted.