Viva Global is a company whose factory located in the Udyog Vihar region of Gurgaon manufactures clothes for well known brands such as Marks & Spencer. For the past few months, the management has been trying to intimidate the workers who have been organising to force the management to give them their rightful dues. Following brutal attacks on the workers and especially the union leaders on 25th August 2010, the workers have been demonstrating outside the factory gate. MEL interviewed the fighting workers who include a large number of women.
Viva Global is a company whose factory located in the Udyog Vihar region of Gurgaon manufactures clothes for well known brands such as Marks & Spencer. For the past few months, the management has been trying to intimidate the workers who have been organising to force the management to give them their rightful dues. Following brutal attacks on the workers and especially the union leaders on 25th August 2010, the workers have been demonstrating outside the factory gate. MEL interviewed the fighting workers who include a large number of women.
The present campaign of intimidation of workers has been going on since April 2010 when the workers started demanding their rights. The management has refused to follow the terms of an agreement it had signed with the workers. On Aug 21, 2010, the management locked out contract workers. The other workers demanded that the contract workers be given their rights. When the workers were entering the factory on 23rd August 2010, the management used a group of about 15 goons armed with pistols and other weapons to threaten the workers and especially the union leaders. On the 25th of August 2010, workers were prevented from entering their work place by the group of goons, who also beat up many of the workers, including women with sticks. A few workers including union activists were abducted, bundled into a vehicle and skirted away.
Following this heinous attack, the workers began a protest at the gate to demand that the perpetrators of these crimes be brought to book. The workers who were abducted by the goons hired by the management were released. The struggle has the support of workers of other factories in the area.
As we go to the press, the workers have resolved to keep fighting till their demands are met.