Chennai,Employees
of the troubled handset maker Nokia have said the Voluntary Retirement Scheme
which came into ef
fect from Tuesday should be optional, alleging it was being
forced on them“There are about 8,000 workers employed at the Sriperumbudur
Nokia facility, which has been scaling down its operations and announced VRS
for the workforce. But the management compelling the workers to accept the
scheme has enraged them,” a leader from the employees union told PTI on
condition of anonymity.
The employees at a meeting
here on Tuesday decided to seek the intervention of Tamil Nadu government to
strictly direct the management to make the VRS scheme optional and not
mandatory.In the aftermath of Nokia-Microsoft $ 7.2 billion deal, the handset
major recently said that it regularly reviews its manufacturing strategy and
added “following such a review, we can confirm we have launched a voluntary
package (VRS) at our Chennai, India facility“.
“The management is asking
to take VRS. For those employees who have rejected VRS, the company has already
stopped transportation services”, a Nokia India Employees Union source alleged.Elaborating,
the leader said the Union representatives recently approached the Assistant
Commissioner, Labour department, seeking help and in his presence it was agreed
that the company would not force the employees to accept VRS. “It should be
optional. But the management is asking some of the employees to take VRS now
itself. How is it possible?” the union official said.
Last month, the employees
staged a one-day fast here to draw the attention of the central and state governments
to their plight.Union sources claimed production at the Chennai plant,
considered one of the biggest for Nokia, had declined from 13 million handsets
per month to four million per month and that the machinery had been shifted to
countries like Vietnam.“Production of phones like Asha range have already
shifted to other countries and the plant, which was operating in three shifts,
has come down to two shifts,” a leader had said earlier.
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