India workers at riot-hit car plant win 75% pay increase: company

India's largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, has given workers at a plant where rioters went on a deadly rampage in July a record pay hike of 75 percent, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Workers at the Manesar plant will see their pay and allowances rise by around 18,000 rupees a month on average over the next three years, making them among the top-earning factory workers in the country.

An increase in transport and other allowances makes the package work out to “an increase of 75 percent,” said the spokesman, who said a permanent worker's average pay packet was around 25,000 rupees.

While wages had been increased “labor costs will continue to make up 2.4 to 2.5 percent of total sales ... it is in our business plan,” said the spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with company policy.

The pay hike at the plant owned by Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp. — the biggest ever awarded by Maruti — comes after workers chased managers at the plant with iron rods and car parts in July, killing one and injuring close to 100 others.