Police have detained 104 striking workers protesting low wages at a Samsung Electronics Co plant in southern India, as they were planning a march yesterday without permission, officials said.
The detention marks an escalation of a strike by workers at a Samsung home appliance plant near Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu. Workers want higher wages and have boycotted work for a week, disrupting production that contributes about one-third of Samsung’s annual India revenue of US$12 billion.
The Samsung protests have cast a shadow on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan of courting foreign investors to “Make in India” and tripling electronics production to US$500 billion in six years as foreign companies diversify their supply chain beyond China.
Photo: Reuters
The workers yesterday planned to start a protest march, but were detained as no permission was given since there are schools, colleges and hospitals in that area, Kanchipuram District senior police officer K. Shanmugam said.
“It is the main area which would become totally paralyzed and [the protest would] disturb public peace,” he said. “We have detained them in wedding halls as all of them can’t be in stations.”
Workers have since last week been protesting at a makeshift tent near the plant, demanding higher wages, recognition for a union backed by the influential labor group Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and better working hours.
Samsung is not keen to recognize any union backed by a national labor group, such as the CITU, and talks with workers and state government officials have not yielded any resolution.
The South Korean company is planning job cuts of up to 30 percent of its overseas staff in some divisions, including in India.
India’s antitrust body has found that Samsung and other smartphone companies colluded with e-commerce giants to launch devices exclusively, contravening competition laws, Reuters has reported.
The Samsung plant employs about 1,800 workers and more than 1,000 of them have been on strike.
The factory makes appliances such as refrigerators, TVs and washing machines.
Another Samsung plant that makes smartphones in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has had no unrest.
CITU leader A. Jenitan said police also detained one of their senior leaders, E. Muthukumar, who was leading the Samsung protests at the factory near Chennai.
“The workers have been asked to return to the [strike] tent,” he said.
Shanmugam said there was no timeline as to how long the workers would be detained.
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