BANGALORE, March 25 — Japan's Toyota said in a statement today that it had resumed “limited production” after unionised employees at its Indian plant refused to return to work following an end to a company lockout.

The Toyota workers and the company's management at two plants near the southern Indian high-tech city of Bangalore are at loggerheads over pay issues, which they have been negotiating for 10 months.

“We have started limited operations with the help of non-unionised team members of whom the majority are engineers and supervisors,” Toyota said in the statement issued late today.

However, union president Prasanna Kumar said: “Instead of resolving the issue amicably, management is misusing apprentices to make them work and has hired contract labour to do our job, which is skilled and involves stringent processes to ensure quality.”

Toyota said there was no truth to the union's claims that it was using apprentices to make the cars or had hired extra non-unionised labour.

The unionised employees refused to resume work after the company lifted the eight-day lockout yesterday.

The carmaker had said workers could return from yesterday provided they signed a good conduct pledge, after suspending some workers over accusations they halted production and made threats to supervisors.

Kumar said the workers were refusing to sign the good conduct promise because “it falsely implicates some employees as responsible” for misconduct that resulted in the lockout.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Ltd is the Indian unit of the world's biggest carmaker.

Its Bangalore complex produces some 310,000 autos annually, including Toyota's flagship Camry sedan, the Corolla, and the Prius hybrid, mostly for the domestic market.

Toyota's union has demanded a pay hike of at least 4,000 rupees (about RM218) a month, while the company is offering 3,050 (US$50), citing tough market conditions with Indian car sales set to fall for a second year in a row.

Toyota has ruled out any compromise with the workers.

“Discipline is required when you are in an industrial environment with a large number of workers. They need to obey rules,” Toyota Kirloskar Motors Vice Chairman - External Affairs Shekar Viswanathan told the national news agency Press Trust of India.

“The words compromise and discipline don't go together,” the news agency quoted him as saying.

Toyota's plant problems come in the wake of other, sometimes violent, labour disturbances, at Indian car factories in recent years.

In 2012, workers at India's top carmaker by sales, Japan's Suzuki Motor's unit Maruti Suzuki India, went on the rampage, killing one executive and injuring over 100 others in a dispute over pay and working conditions.

Toyota has appealed to the Karnataka state government to help end the row, while the union has asked the state's labour ministry to protect its members' interests.

Even with a slowing car market, global vehicle manufacturers have been investing in India in the belief the country has great growth potential with just 15 out of every 1,000 people owning vehicles, according to industry figures, compared to saturated western markets. —AFP