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ShareMumbai: "Neem ka patta kadwa hai, Praful Patel bh***a hai... Gali gali mein shor hai, praful Patel chor hai." Slogans rented the air at the domestic airport in Santa Cruz on Friday as Air India (AI) employees staged a two-hour walkout protest -- perhaps the biggest demonstration since 2006, when Mumbai airport was privatised.
The airline defaulted on the July 3 payment of wages to its 10,000 lower grade employees and cabin crew, but it was Patel, the union civil aviation minister, who bore the brunt of employees' fury. "He was the minister when the airport was privatised. Now, he might sell off the national carrier too," said Vivek Rao, general secretary, Air Corporation Employees' Union. "He is blaming us for things going wrong with the airline. Tomorrow, if he becomes the prime minister, he will blame the public for poverty, poor housing and other conditions."
Around 1 pm on Friday, 1,000 AI employees left their work and gathered outside the terminal to vent their protest. "We had been promised by the management that salaries of our grade I, II, III & VI and the cabin crew would be deposited in their bank accounts by today.But that did not happen," said George Abraham, president of Aviation Employees' Guild (AEG).
Earlier, on Thursday, employees received a letter from AI chairman and managing director Arvind Jadhav, which hinted that salaries might not be deposited in bank accounts by Friday. But an AI spokesperson said that money would be in, as had been promised.
But on Friday morning, it became clear that salaries were not going to come. So, employees left work to join the protest. Fortunately, it did not inconvenience the air passengers. "The two-hour agitation by a section of Air India employees failed to have any impact on flights anywhere on Air India's countrywide network today. As stated by the Air India Management earlier, requisite steps had been taken to ensure total normalcy in operations, so that passengers were not inconvenienced," AI said in a statement.
The AI employees' unions will meet on Sunday to decide their future course of action.
No more overtime
Angered by Air India chairman and managing director (CMD) Arvind Jadhav's comments three days ago, that there should be zero overtime regime, the employees decided not to do overtime Friday evening onwards. "Since 1991, AI has not recruited people in categories other than the cabin crew and pilots. At that time, we did not have these many aircrafts. Moreover, every month people retire. To make up for this staff crunch, we do overtime," said Rao. "But since our CMD wants zero overtime, we will fulfil his wish from today onwards."
