AI staff goes on flash strike

It seems issues concerning human resource will be the biggest roadblock in the impending merger of the two national carriers, Air India and Indian.

Even as the date for their merger inches close, the 8000-odd employees of Aviation Industry Employees’ Guild, the largest union within Air India, went on a sudden indefinite strike across the country on Tuesday afternoon.

The workers, who are protesting the management’s reported failure to implement the new productivity-linked incentives (PLI) and also some pending financial incentives and payments pertaining to the HRA and CCA, have struck at a time when the Group of Ministers (GoM) met in Delhi over civil aviation policy matters on Tuesday evening.

The strike, which caused 45 minutes to an hour delays at the Delhi and the Mumbai airport, is expected to impact operations on Wednesday morning flights also.

“We are getting casual manpower, primarily for baggage handling, and also employees from our subsidiary Air Transport Services to tide over the situation,” said S Venkat, executive director finance and also AI spokesperson.

There were reports of some furniture being damaged by the striking employees at Terminal 2C at the Sahar airport. Police were called to intervene.

“It was not expected as the bulk of wage arrears, including an enhanced HRA from July 2004, has been paid to the employees. The PLI is a separate issue and a committee is looking into the matter,” added Venkat.

However, the AI employees insist otherwise. “The PLI has not been revised for the past 10 years. A high-powered committee, comprising HR experts from NITIE, IIM and National Productivity Council, had submitted a final proposal after interacting with the unions for the new PLI, but to no avail so far.

We don’t want to be a part of the merged entity with a disadvantage. The issue is dragging and post-merger it would be lost,” said George Abraham, general secretary of the Guild.

Air India’s official statement said, “The union did not given any strike notice. We don’t expect this from a responsible union and would, therefore, urge the workers to immediately resume work.”

There was a round of talk between the management and the union on Tuesday evening, but no agreement could be reached.

The other AI unions, especially ones with officers as their members, did not join the strike, but demand that the issue of merger be held in abeyance as the HR and PLI issues are settled.

“If our demands are not heeded, we too will take extreme steps,” said TK Dhar of Air India Aircraft engineers association.