Ashok Leyland signs bonus pact with union

Hinduja group flagship Ashok Leyland (ALL) on Friday announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ashok Leyland Employees Union (ALEU), the recognised union, for an ex-gratia/bonus amount of Rs 1.75 lakh for the unionised category of employees at its Ennore plant (the mother plant) for the year 2018-19 (April 2018 to March 2019).

In a notice to employees, the company said that the payment would be pro-rated to the actual attendance and earnings thereof during the financial year of 2018-19. However, loss of earnings on account of permission/late in/early out and industrial accidents during the course of employment shall be excluded. The company further said that all applicable deduction/dues like income tax as applicable, insurance premium including excess premium paid by the company for the employees to the insurance company in 2018, credit society loans, bank loans, any other advances in the name of eligible employees and other deductions, if any, will be recovered from the Bonus amount.

The above mentioned payment will be made on September 16 (Monday) through bank transfers. The company also said that the ex-gratia/bonus will not be paid to all the trainees and apprecentices, employees who have been found guilty and dismissed for misconducts enumerated under Section 9 of the Payment of Bonus Act, where an employee has been found guilty of misconduct causing financial loss to the company, the amount of loss shall be deducted from the ex-gratia/bonus payable, the notice further said.

It may be recalled that the workers’ union has been demanding 7% of the profit made last fiscal, but the management was adamant at 5% or 5.5%. The current bonus/ex-gratia is worked out to be around 5.42%, union sources said. All the 6,146 employees are expected to be benefited by this bonus, the union official then said.

The bonus announcement came in amidst ongoing production holidays the company had announced last week. With uncertainty looming large over the early demand revival in the CV sector as well as to avoid any inventory pile-up due to ensuing BS VI norms, ALL has extended its production holidays beyond Chennai plant to all other plants across the country for a large number of days.

After absorbing close to two weeks at its Chennai plant in the last few days, the company on Monday announced that it will absorb production holidays at its plants including Chennai (Ennore), Hosur, Pant Nagar, Alwar, Bhandara in September. The company said that due to continued weak demand, it has been decided to absorb production holidays across plants.

Except Hosur (1,2 and CPPS) for 5 days, the company has decided to go for a minimum of 10 days production cut across all other plants. A maximum of 18 days production cut will be absorbed at its Pant Nagar plant in Uttarkhand, followed by 16 days at its Ennore plant (Chennai). In the other two plants of Alwar and Bhandara, the company decided to cut 10 days of production during the month, the firm informed the stock exchanges.