Welding Cracks At Kalyani Technoweld
Pune industrialists seem to pick important days to down the shutters without warning and delivering shocks to their employees. We published how Racold closed down on Diwali 2018 and now we see Kalyani Technoweld P Ltd. adopting the same way.
On 31st December all workers, workers of Kalyani Technoweld woke up to the messages from Cosmos Bank. Some of them realised that their bank accounts to which the Company usually credited their salaries, were credited a much higher amount than their salary. When they enquired, they realised that it was the retrenchment compensation and notice pay; meaning that they had lost their jobs!
The management of the company had asked workers to take a day off on Dec 31 citing no demand for their products, and that they will be paid fully for this absence. That the sudden closure was actually carefully planned should be clear to any reader.
There are 53 workers at this company, and they were stopped at the gate. Security was beefed up and a police van was parked nearby as abundant caution. They were told that the company has closed down the operations, and they will not be allowed entry.
Originally employees of Kalyani Technoforge, some employees were asked to join Kalyani Technoweld, promising better future. That was in 2014. The present workforce is thus drawn from parent company. The average age is about 40 years, so the workers have a gloomy future ahead. Education of children, loans are major concerns, so also looking after the ageing parents. In effect lives of two hundred persons are directly affected, actually hard hit, if we count a family of four.
Many workers found that the Cosmos Bank and Bhagini Nivedita Bank have deducted the entire outstanding loan from the dues (retrenchment compensation and notice pay), leaving nothing, absolutely nothing, in the hands of the retrenched workers. The situation is so hopeless that one worker reportedly threatened to commit suicide and had to be counselled, and pacified. Union officials say that almost 80% workers had outstanding loans of various amounts.
The union officials mentioned that while they have been retrenched, contract workers have been employed to carry out their work.
It is surprising that workers who have had long service with the company, have been thrown out to fend for themselves by a renowned company belonging to Kalyani Group! Amit Kalyani who is a graduate of Bucknell University and also of Harvard, is said to be in charge of the operations of this company.
The parent company boasts of values, among them are: Respect for Every Individual, Performing with Passion and Building Mutual Trust. Values are always tested on the anvil of critical moments in the history, like the present situation.
Contrast this against the philosophy of Govindbhai Dholakia, the highly enlightened entrepreneur of SRK Exports. He is studied only up to 7th standard but it is irrelevant, rather he has made it irrelevant by his highly evolved humane approach to all issues. Here is an excerpt from his interview. (Read the full story here)
In 2008 we were hit by recession. Very bad it was. The prices fell almost by 30%. What was 100 became 70, and it was sudden. But we did not retrench employees. We were one of the two or three companies which did not retrench employees. We employed about 6000 persons. Our senior team including some of my family members told me that we must retrench 3000 employees.
I had never done that…. I told them don’t worry, Diwali vacation is approaching, why spoil their Diwali? Please wait till the festivities are over….After that I will do whatever you say…. I always agree 100% first with people and then I influence them to look my way…..After Diwali the situation slightly improved, and they said we must reduce 1500 employees….I said okay but please make a list of people whose services are to be terminated…..They made a list and then said this man is a good worker, that man has family difficulty, this worker is a relative and so on… and the list got cut down to 500. I told them that this is less than 10% of our employees so retrenchment is no issue any longer!
We get things wrong when we think that the balance sheet represents the wealth of the organisation. It does not. The real wealth is in relationship. It is in the culture.
More than a hundred workers wrote to me saying they appreciated the situation in which the organisation was. Several of them offered to work at reduced rate, several of them offered to do extra work. Here are the letters…..you can see for yourself.
ME: “Govindkaka I wish to ask you a question…. Actually I think I know the answer yet I would like to ask you….. Because managers trained abroad will see this as unnecessary cost…what have you to say?”
“I agree with them completely. It is a huge cost. But they are ignoring the benefit… it far exceeds the cost!”
* * *
Why did Kalyanis act out of fear? Why can’t they show greater sensitivity to people who have worked with them for a long time? Can we not expect fairness at the hands of well-educated Amit Kalyani? Do they understand that ‘fairness’ involves values, (which are sorely missing here,) and being ‘just’ a mere statutory compliance? Can the workers expect that the Company will abide by their professed values?
The workers have lost hopes. They have only a legal battle before them, the Government policies are so unsupportive to them. And who will pay for the legal battle?
The welding thru psychological contract has cracked at many places. And lives are falling apart. Who worries…. Do people matter?
Vivek S Patwardhan
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
Precariousness…age around 40 years…what will employees do?
Absolute blatant show of power without any sensitivity. Will these go on….? What are unions doing? Each fending for themselves…
Workers will certainly hit back.
Excellent article! And really well pinpointed the core issue of deteriorating values in society. The silver loses it lustre at times of need and this is precisely what happens when management faces tough times. They buckle under pressure failing to realize that Artha only cones after Dharma and sustaining livelihood of employees is one of primary Dharma of business owner.
Very sad!
Thought they had closed the operations. But it looks like from what you have mentioned, that Kalyani group wants to run the affairs with contract labour and not close manufacturing operations.
The workers are in very piquant situation. The times are bad as there is near recession situation. Hope and pray that something works out for them.
Its really disturbing to read this sir. How in-human it is. The retrenchment amount is also peanuts. What will they do with 2 lac rupees. Its not enough even to manage yearly expense of school fees and other normal expenses required. Is there no way they can be helped to get their jobs back?
In the US (which perhaps seems to be the role model of the company management), hire and fire culture in blue collar jobs is fairly common and the fired blue collar resources have some avenues to get rehired elsewhere / when situation improves. In countries like India, this practice is sporadic. Coupled with that the fact that the workforce in many places is already bloated on account of productivity and other matters. Hence the fired blue collar resources have a very limited opportunity elsewhere. Add to that the great force of automation and digitization! If we lose humane touch in all this, the social fabric will start getting shredded to pieces!
So unfortunate. The business people shout from the rooftops about restrictive labour laws constraining business. Hard earned labour laws have hardly seen the light of the day in terms of vigour of execution thanks to the assymetric power of the managements. We need to be humane more than anything else. It is much easier to talk to the employees than sending the death warrant of termination. We need to question whether we have the credibility to act against the weak, when most managements neglect the basic duty of putting all resources to demonstrable productive use.
Unfortunate and rude for the workmen. I am sure there are better ways with the Management to deal with the situation compared to the way it is executed.
Dear Vivek, This is indeed sad. 53 is not a large no. The group has been in existance for a long time. Could have absorbed this cost or handled it much better. An agreed VRS could have been worked out. What is worse is the complete lack of communication and engagement with the concerned employees on their own future. Must have been such a shock.There is just no substitute to discussions to state the reality but also work on an acceptable solution.
Disturbing to read, especially in the new year. Retrenchment compensation and supposedly ‘by the law’ is hardly any justification to this insensitive act. Surely there could have been alternatives or certainly more responsible and humane way of addressing the situation. Besides financial challenges, not a thought spared to what happens to the social existence of the workforce and their families. Very sad and unfortunate that an organisation that boasts of values and work culture did what it did.
A classic case of Operation Successful..Patient Dead!
Sad. Very Sad!
Early part of my career, Kalyani Group was one of the “target’ companies for young(then) engineers like me. Happy we have not been part of such an “heartless’ organisation.
What hurts more is the way of execution(pun intended) of the evil design.
Can only pray for the well being of those who lost their jobs.
Racold still fighting in the court no relief in sight ! Callousness and confidence about insbilty of law and state to intervene owkers are behaving without human values !society need to intervene
Double standards are surprising.
On one side they speak of Vision, mission, Ethos, Ethics, commitment and all. On the other, stealth way of attack.
Secondly the contract Labour Act is most abused.
Will some one take up the matter in right Ernest ?
Regards
Abhay
It is difficult to say for workers that ” Apna time Aayega”.
There are many painful questions for which we do have answers like Govindbhai. But the thing is how many of us ask questions. Sir,You have asked. But till the time the owner doesn’t listen to his conscienc (if he still has it) or someone force him to look at the pain the workers are subjected to, this pain will not give birth to any solution. We all are crying in the forest.
I read this yesterday, and took a long breath. Not a comment was in then. Today, there is a swell of opinion. My reflections run lie this.
Baba Kalyani, worked with Drs Vanarase to get workers round the bend at Bharat Forge decades ago. Victor Ellis Rational Emotional Therapy was at the core, and it was of course contextualized for application in the Marathi language. At the helm of Industrial Relations / Personnel then was the late JN Desai. Desai’s son Sameer runs a successful marketing firm known as Seagull, imbibed with the spirit of cooperation and a joie de vivre as they say.
Amit Kalyani is just a couple of years junior to Sameer and they went to the same school too. It baffles me as to what manner of choice could lead to such clinical separation of employees, as if lessons from his father’s generation were lost altogether.
Reminds me today of a lyric as below from the late poet Leonard Cohen
“I heard the snake was baffled by his sin
He shed his scales to find the snake within
But born again is born without a skin
The poison enters into everything…”
My take is to watch the nature of the poison, and what else has it in our society today.
Dear Vivek,
Another masterpiece Sir.
Thanks for sharing this development . On a mere reading of the article, anyone will say that this could have been handled with some more sensitivity.
Many Corporates/Institutions especially the ‘Iconic’ ones have been in the News for the wrong reasons …perhaps the issues were always there . It is just that the Transparency /communication has gone up