Nokia India tax case has reached to such a stage where the Chennai plant is reportedly seeing erosion in production volume and seems at a risk of job cuts as well. The matter has got complicated with a new tax bill slapped against Nokia, this time by state government. The Chennai plant union has tried to resolve the matter by discussing with Nokia plant management team but seems there was not much headway. The union is against job losses due to shifting of production to other Asian plants of Nokia. They will now will clear their stand on this issue tomorrow and they plan to hit streets, if they are no positive developments.
According to Nokia India Employees Union honorary president A. Soundararajan, the Chennai plant that was producing about 1 million mobile handsets per day witnessed a steep decline and now stands at just 0.4 million handsets.
“Due to the decline in volume of mobile phone produced at the factory, we fear there may be job losses. We do not want that to happen,” he told PTI. He said the meeting with Nokia India Chennai plant management and union did not yield positive results, and threatened that if there were no positive developments, the union would not hesitate to “hit the streets” seeking their demand.
Nokia India Employees Union president Saravana Kumar said, “We want our future to be secured. Most of the employees have been working since the plant commenced its operations. In the current scenario, our future is bleak.”
Asked on the next move, he said the union would conduct a press conference in Chennai on Thursday to convey their stand on the issue.
Nokia has already mentioned that the transfer of plant to Microsoft has no bearing on timing or material deal terms of the Nokia-Microsoft deal, but losing such a plant may not be acceptable to Microsoft.
