A typical day, the ‘strike-day’ in a particular southern state that has a history of strikes, the scene is all but predictable. The members of the political party that is staging the strike outside the secretariat start the strike on a quiet note. Slowly they start piling in front of the Secretariat building. The constabulary is standing on the other side, with the front row composed of fresh recruits who have been ragged enough by the seniors and are raring to let loose the batons that they are wielding on anything mortal. Then some stones are thrown by the demonstrators. Before the entire verbal order by the constabulary in-charge can be completed the ‘itching front-row enforcers’ let loose their sticks on the 'stoning protesters'. By that time ‘Varun’ arrives to the scene. Varun is the water cannon used by the constabulary to disperse protesters. The next thing you can see is that the demonstrators are floating and are being swept away in a pool of water. At times, if tear gas shells are fired at the demonstrators, there are cadres within them (those wearing masks) whose job is to block the shells and throw them back at the constabulary. The constabulary is seldom wearing masks and the next thing you see is a part of the ‘originators’ jumping on their own missiles, teary-eyed. The whole scene is so predictable and repetitive that it appears both sides know their ‘roles’ too well and in no time everything is over and pridefully ‘nothing’, absolutely ‘nothing’ has been achieved.
The year 2011 had been a year of strikes- the big Maruti strike, the Bosch strike, the Coal India strike, the endless Air India strikes and more…However it is still not clear what most of these strikes were directed at or what they aimed to achieve. For instance the Maruti strike started on a demand to form a separate union by workers at a particular plant, continued on workers disagreement to sign a ‘good-conduct bond’ instructed by the management and failed to achieve anything substantial except causing the company to lose on critical sales especially of diesel cars at a time when total car sales were not looking particularly bright (YoY). The Bosch strike started with workers protesting against proposed outsourcing of ancillary activities by the management, with accusations by workers against management’s changing stance and retraction from promise of not doing so! The strike ended without any agreement and the case has been referred for adjudication. The Air India strikes by pilots, ground-staff have been riddled with controversies in the backdrop of despicable performance by Air India. In short, in all these cases the disengagement was clearly staring at the world. It was more than obvious that a severe lack of trust and low engagement was the bigger reason than any other quoted by the workers or the management for these strikes. They appeared to be too orchestrated and both the sides taking historical roles rather than trying to understand each other or converse with each other.
The year 2011 had been a year of strikes- the big Maruti strike, the Bosch strike, the Coal India strike, the endless Air India strikes and more…However it is still not clear what most of these strikes were directed at or what they aimed to achieve. For instance the Maruti strike started on a demand to form a separate union by workers at a particular plant, continued on workers disagreement to sign a ‘good-conduct bond’ instructed by the management and failed to achieve anything substantial except causing the company to lose on critical sales especially of diesel cars at a time when total car sales were not looking particularly bright (YoY). The Bosch strike started with workers protesting against proposed outsourcing of ancillary activities by the management, with accusations by workers against management’s changing stance and retraction from promise of not doing so! The strike ended without any agreement and the case has been referred for adjudication. The Air India strikes by pilots, ground-staff have been riddled with controversies in the backdrop of despicable performance by Air India. In short, in all these cases the disengagement was clearly staring at the world. It was more than obvious that a severe lack of trust and low engagement was the bigger reason than any other quoted by the workers or the management for these strikes. They appeared to be too orchestrated and both the sides taking historical roles rather than trying to understand each other or converse with each other.
Direction is always relative to something – Instead of saying that the church is to the north of capitol or to the south of the supermart, if we say that the church is in the west, you will never find one, would you? Similarly engagement is always relative to something. Engagement to job, to the leadership, to the contributions, to the idea-sharing & creation, to the career-options and more, on the super base of organization-culture of trust & openness. And, hence, any misdirected engagement effort, which is not clear on objective it seeks to achieve, shall not yield anything. The onus of this does not always lie with the management alone but also with the employees. Else, both the parties shall continue to ‘act’ their ‘roles’, without practically achieving anything worthy.
Just to reinforce in the new year - Engagement is like Velocity, which is a Vector entity - must have speed as well as direction!
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