Workers of Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) went on an indefinite hunger strike outside the premises of the Bidadi-based manufacturing facilities on Wednesday and demanded the Karnataka government to take action against the company.

A group of workers led by Toyota Kirloskar Workers Union (TKWU) President Prasanna Kumar went on hunger strike yesterday after the company's management declined to unconditionally reinstate suspended workers.

In addition, the union members are not ready to sign an undertaking of good conduct. They believe that signing the undertaking would legalize the management's lockout decision. The workers are trying to press the management to let them resume work unconditionally.

Speaking about the persistent conflict, Prasanna said, "The hunger strike will continue till such time the management reinstates us without any conditions. Our demand is that the state government takes action against TKM . We also want TKM to reinstate 30 union workers whom they suspended earlier."

The union also condemned the management's decision of hiring contract workers to run operations at the two factories, where an eight-day lockout ended on March 24.

However, the company claims that it had hired contract workers. It said in a statement that it started limited operations with the help of non-unionized workers.

The labour unrest dragged TKM's sales down by a whopping 57 per cent in March this year.