chennai toyota kirloskar on tuesday refuted reports that it had recruited 1000 contract workers to run its production lines at its plant in bidadi its absolutely untrue that toyota is running its plants using 1000 contract workers and 2000 apprentices the company said in a statement on tuesday we have started limited plant operations with the help of nonunionized team members of whom majority are supervisors and engineers toyota which is facing ongoing labour unrest at its bidadi plant over wage disputes lifted the lockout in the factory on monday however the relation between workers and management is far from cordial the latest bone of contention is a good conduct undertaking which the management wants the workers to sign but the employees have refused to sign it and resume work while the management had earlier opted for a lockout at the plant for safety reasons employees are demanding an unconditional lifting of the lockout without the good conduct undertaking attached to resumption of work the ongoing spat is the latest in a long series of labour disputes that has dogged the bidadi plant the current impasse is over the managements offer of a wage increase of rs 3050 a month for its permanent employees an offer unacceptable to the workers the management alleged that the goslow on the production lines had cost the company 2000 cars in the past 25 days the company has 4900 workers of which only 400 are on contract and the rest are permanent the plant has the capacity to produce more than 300000 vehicles a year labour unrest has dogged automotive clusters in india regularly two years ago maruti suzuki faced a violent labour unrest which crippled the companys performance and even claimed fatalities the oragadam auto belt in tamil nadu has also seen labour flare ups