Indian Automotive Industry

The automotive industry has been undergoing a period of relatively strong growth and profitability worldwide and annual sales have reached prerecession levels in some regions. Global sales are forecast to hit 73.9 million vehicles in 2015. United States and China are counted among the largest automobile markets worldwide, both in terms of production and sales. About 7.7 million passenger cars were sold in U.S in 2014, and around 4.25 million cars were produced here in the same year.

According to the Organization Internationale des Constructeurs d 'Automobiles (OICA), Global motor vehicle sales has reached about 85 million units in 2013, an increase of 4% compared to 2012, yet considerable uncertainty about the future remains. There are certain

The automobile industry accounts for 7.1 per cent of the country 's gross domestic product (GDP).As per data provided by Society of Indian Automobile manufacturers, the Indian Auto industry produced a total of 7.8 million vehicles in April-July 2015 as against 7.7 million in April-July 2014, thereby indicating a growth of 1.8 per cent year-on-year.

Trade unions in India have come a long way since the first organized trade union - the Madras Labor Union, formed in 1918. India now has more than 85k registered trade unions along with an unaccounted number of unregistered trade unions scattered across a large spectrum of industries in India. The potential for growth in trade union represented workers is huge given the fact that India is likely to have a working population of more than 64% by the year 2021. The trade union movement in India began after the end of First World War due to the need for coordination of activities of individual unions. The movement, over a period of time, systematically spread to almost all industrial centers and became an integral part of the industrial process in India. Most of labor workforce in automobile industry comprises of some or the other kind of trade

Within the days of Toyota lifted the lockout at its manufacturing plant near Bangalore, the country 's leading component maker ‘Bosch’ lost production after 2,000 of its workers opted for a tools down strike. This has become a recurring problem for the Indian auto industry. What is further complicating the problem is a mix of contract and permanent workers where the former is increasingly demanding equal pay and rights. According to past estimates, the wage difference between contract and permanent workers in the Gurgaon-Manesar belt varies anywhere between 50 to 70 percent. Maruti Suzuki for instance is moving away with contract workers altogether and instead are opting for temporary workers hired directly from their ITIs. A news channel analysis reveals that until last year the share of contract workers for most of the auto giants were on the higher side. Tata Motors for instance had total permanent employees of 30,334 and contractual employees stood at 43,851. This means around 60% of the total employee strength was contract-based. Hero Motocorp had employed 13,800 workers on contract accounting for 70% of its total employee strength. Maruti Suzuki at the end of FY’13 had 30 percent of its total employees on contract. Bajaj Auto does well on this count, with less than 10 percent of its total