Indian police arrest 600 striking Yamaha workers; Pakistan teachers, municipal employees and other workers demonstrate for unpaid wages
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
6 October 2018
Asia
India: Police arrest 600 protesting Yamaha workers
Police arrested around 600 demonstrating Yamaha India workers on October 2 during a protest outside the Kancheepuram bus terminus. The arrested workers were detained at a nearby hall. The demonstrations erupted after the company, a major two-wheeler manufacturer, sacked two workers for their involvement in union activities.
More than 750 Yamaha India employees began an indefinite strike and occupation of the plant on September 21 to demand the two workers be reinstated. The two workers had led the struggle to establish a new union, the Yamaha Motor Thozhilalar Sangham (India Motor Workers Association). The union is linked to the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its Centre of Indian Trade Unions.
On September 26, police attacked the striking Yamaha workers as well as 1,300 Royal Enfield workers, who had walked out on September 24 and occupied their plant to demand a wage rise. Police violently broke up the occupation and ejected the auto workers from their respective plants. Both of the manufacturing facilities are located in Tamil Nadu’s Oragadam special economic zone, near Chennai, the state capital.
Tamil Nadu sanitary workers protest for better compensation
On October 2, hundreds of contracted sanitary workers in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, held a sit-down protest blocking the Collectors Office to demand compensation for a fellow worker who was accidently killed collecting garbage on September 28.
The sanitation workers also demanded abolition of contract employment and strong action against the…