Shubham Ghosh
THE Madras High Court on Tuesday (22) asked the government of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu to inspect a Renault-Nissan plant on July 3 to assess whether social-distancing norms are being observed. The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy passed the order.
The workers’ union of the automobile-makers’ alliance petitioned the court in May alleging that social-distancing norms were not being followed and the health benefits that the company provided to them were less than the life risks they faced. They demanded that operations be halted at the plant.
The call for inspection from the Madras High Court comes in the wake of a review of Ford, Hyundai and Renault-Nissan plants by state officials of Tamil Nadu last week, Reuters reported. They said the nature of work in assembly lines posed challenges to social distancing.
Reuters contacted Nissan, which owns a majority stake in the Renault-Nissan plant near Chennai, the state capital, but did not get any immediate response.
Auto-maker promises to implement DISH guidelines
A lawyer representing Renault-Nissan told the court that the company would carry out guidelines issued by officials from Tamil Nadu’s Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health (DISH) ahead of next month’s inspection.
The guidelines apply to all carmakers including Ford and Hyundai. However, the court said only the Renault-Nissan factory will be inspected since workers’ unions at other manufacturers were yet to raise questions.
The DISH review last week found that three in four workers at the plants had not been vaccinated for Covid-19 and while one in seven workers contracted the virus, 21 died. Workers at three plants constituted more than four per cent of all active cases in the two districts where they are located.
On Tuesday, Renault-Nissan sought to stop the practice of deploying an empty slot on the conveyor belt -- a change that would increase its production – since it was found to be ineffective in maintaining social distancing.
“I respectfully submit that this would be identical to the business operations adopted in all other similar car manufacturers like Hyundai and Ford,” Renault-Nissan said in a court filing that was reviewed by Reuters. The company’s workers though have been pushing for an empty slot for every slot on the conveyor belt with a car, and for reduction in conveyor belt speed, saying it hindered social distancing.
Production at the Renault-Nissan plant went down and was nearly three-fifths of the pre-lockdown levels at the time of the DISH review.
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