Lankan trade unions protest against alleged treatment of Maruti workers in India

Expressing solidarity with their counterparts Sri Lankan trade unions on Monday protested against the “attack” on Maruti workers in India outside the Indian High Commission in Colombo.

With posters displaying slogans asking the Indian State to stop “prosecuting” workers, leaders and members of different unions gathered along Galle Road.

Observing that workers in India and Sri Lanka faced similar challenges, Anton Marcus, Joint Secretary of the Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees Union told the Hindu that often, imprisonment was used to  discourage them from unionising in future. “That is what we are seeing in this case involving Maruti workers. It is important that we stand in solidarity in times like these,” he said.

In March this year, a district court in New Delhi sentenced 13 workers of Maruti Udyog to life imprisonment for allegedly killing the Human Resources manager at its plant in Manesar in 2012. 

The group of protestors, numbering nearly 30 persons, included student-activists from the Inter-University Student Federation of Sri Lanka.