All’s Not Well In Sun Pharma-Ranbaxy Human Resource Integration?
500 Sun Pharma medical representatives to hold pan-India strike today.
An estimated 500-600 employees of the erstwhile Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., now Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., will go on a pan-India strike on September 26, union representative, PN Subramaniam told BloombergQuint.
Subramaniam is a secretary of the trade union body Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives’ Associations of India (FMRAI) and the all-India convenor of the Sun Pharma Council.
Subramaniam claims the striking employees are protesting non-payment of wages for the last four months, non-reimbursement of expenses, the transfer of 54 union members in November 2015 and removal of various benefits they had enjoyed as employees of Ranbaxy.
There was a particular system of reporting in Ranbaxy Labs, which was unilaterally changed by Sun Pharma after the merger between the two companies, Subramaniam said. When the union challenged this in the Industrial Court of Mumbai, the court ruled in favour of the employees, directing Sun Pharma to pay the requisite wages. Sun Pharma then approached the Bombay High Court on this matter, and the case is still being heard.
The management made certain transfers in order to “finish trade union activity in Sun Pharma, Subramaniam said. “Sun Pharma doesn’t recognise any sort of trade union so it is their policy. These trade unions had been recognised by Ranbaxy for about 30 years.”
Medical representatives will stage demonstrations in various state capitals at labour commission offices, and their family members are expected to join in, said R Viswanathan, the president of FMRAI.
The striking employees will also submit a memorandum to the Maharashtra Labour Minister and the Labour Commissioner, seeking their intervention in the matter. The striking Ranbaxy medical representatives will be supported by 340 sub-units of the FMRAI which will also stage pan-India demonstrations at various district collectors’ offices.
A thousand of the four thousand Ranbaxy employees, who were transferred to Sun Pharmaceutical Industries after it acquired Ranbaxy in a $3.2 billion deal in 2014, have resigned from the company following the acquisition, Subramaniam claimed.
Sun Pharma refused to comment on BloombergQuint’s query, saying the matter is sub-judice.