Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], October 2 : The Samsung employees on Wednesday staged a one-day non-violent hunger strike on the day of Gandhi Jayanti. The protest has entered its twenty second day on Wednesday.
The workers also paid their respects to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi statue.
The Samsung factory is located in Sunguvarchatiram in Kanchipuram district which is on the outskirts of Chennai. More than 1500 workers are working, and since September 9, they have been engaged in a continuous protest, insisting on a wage hike, union recognition, 8-hour working hours.
Earlier, a 'road roko' was held across Tamil Nadu by Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU) yesterday. More than 900 workers participated in the protest in Kanchipuram district with the police reportedly detaining some workers them and releasing them later in the night. A case has been registered against the workers under eight sections.
Tamil Nadu CITU state secretary Muthukumar said that the hunger strike by the workers will be continuing till today evening and also strongly condemned the police's action against the workers.
CITU state President, Soundarrajan, said that the government has not taken any measures to support the workers, despite promising to support them before coming to power.
"The government has not taken any progressive measures in support of the workers who are continuously struggling, in 1972, while workers were continuously involved in protests, that time Chief Minister Karunanidhi did not take any action in this regard still the workers won. The same situation will emerge in this protest too. ," he said.
He further said that the government had promised the issues faced by the workers would be solved, but Tamil Nadu government has not done anything for them, which they condemn.
"Before coming to power, they had promised that they will solve the issue faced by workers and would have great support but the government didn't support in it and still we are with their (DMK) Alliance we won't encourage this and we condemn it," he added.
Earlier, Samsung India in a statement said that it is paying 1.8 times more than the average salary of manufacturing workers in the region.
"At Samsung India, the welfare of our workers is our top priority. The average monthly salary of our full-time manufacturing workers at the Chennai plant is 1.8 times higher than that of similar workers employed by other companies in the region," the company said.