Honda 2Wheeler Workers Are On a Digital Dharna

Tired of the media’s anti-labour slant, Honda Workers in India are producing their own video stories for the web.

Cellphone videos have become a whole new form of labour protest. (Illustration: Susnata Paul/The Quint

On 16 February this year, workers at the Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) factory in Tapukara, Rajasthan, went on strike. The dharna, workers say, began when a plant engineer slapped a worker, and ended with Honda terminating over 100 of its 500-strong permanent workforce, and replacing over 1,000 contract workers.

The strike was part of a long-running dispute between a section of the workers and Honda management over the formation of a new workers union in the factory. The violence on February 16, workers claim, offered the management an excuse to dismiss those workers demanding the new union. The dismissed workers are currently on hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, to put pressure on the management to reinstate them.

Honda has disputed these claims. In a statement to The Quint, the company said:

Contrary to the issue being coined as a “labour issue” by section of ex-employees, it was actually a matter of gross indiscipline. They were sacked for planned sabotage at plant including damage to machinery, inventory and production loss which led to over Rs 120 million losses in February.

The dismissed workers, Honda’s management said, were intimidating their colleagues. “These workers had demanded Rs 11,000 each from each permanent worker towards forming the union. Those who did not cooperate were beaten up and forcibly detained at the plant by blocking the factory exits on February 16, which led to the police action.”

While strikes and dharnas of this nature are quite common in India’s industrial zones, this protest is different because the workers have bypassed traditional news outlets and reached out to their fellow workers and the broader public by shooting, editing and producing their own video stories.

These “stories” are shared from phone-to-phone using Facebook, memory cards, applications like ShareIt and messaging services like Whatsapp. This video uses these clips and stories – shot by workers themselves – to offer an inside view of a fascinating new form of labour protest and solidarity.