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| AI employees stage mass walkout from work |
| New Delhi, PTI: |
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Defying threat of a wage cut, nearly 20,000 employees of cash-strapped Air India on Friday staged a mass walkout from work for two hours as part of their nationwide protest demanding immediate payment of their salaries.
The protest, called by Aviation Industry Employees Guild (AIEG), Air Corporation Employees Union (ACEU) and some other unions, saw employees coming out of their offices in Delhi and Mumbai and stage demonstrations from one pm, besides threatening to boycott their meetings with the management.
Around 300 employees, carrying red flags, assembled in front of the old terminal at the Delhi airport shouting slogans in Delhi against the management and demanding immediate payment of salaries. Later, they took out a procession on the airport premises.
"The government cannot defer the salary as per Payment of Wages Act. It must pay the salary by July ten. The company is not following rules and regulations and taking decisions which is not in the interest of employees," J B Kadiyan, General Secretary of ACEU, said.
Airport officials said flight operations were not disrupted because of the strike.
Secretary of the Aviation Industry Employees' Guild V J Deka said the employees decided to stage a two-hour protest from one pm to three pm to ensure minimum impact on the flight operations. "This is token strike. We did not want to create inconvenience to our passengers."
Hours before the employees staged the protest, the airline management issued a stern warning to the employees, saying "any participation in the illegal strike will be viewed seriously and appropriate action, including deduction of wages and withdrawal of Productivity-Linked Incentive till further orders, will be taken".
Warning them of "firm" action if flights were disrupted and passengers suffered inconvenience, the notice said the agitation by the Joint Action Forum would violate the Industrial Disputes Act and "tantamount to illegal strike".
Kadiyan said almost 20,000 employees joined the strike nationwide to protest the arbitrary decisions of the management which is leading to "serious financial problem" in the national carrier.
"The management in a meeting on June 29 agreed to pay salaries of 70 per cent of workers by today. But they could not keep their words," he said.
Kadiyan alleged that the company is being "damaged systematically by certain vested interests who want to sell Air India off. "We will never allow this to happen."
"The total budget of Air India is Rs 7,000 crore. Then why it decided to buy aircraft worth Rs 6,000 crore. Air India planned to purchase 24 aircraft and Indian Airlines wanted to buy 43 aircraft.
"But later Air India changed its fleet plan and within 24 weeks firmed a plan to buy 68 aircraft," Kadiyan said questioning the decision to extend the fleet plan of Air India.
He also demanded a CBI enquiry into the Air India's decision to buy 68 aircraft instead of 24 aircraft agreed initially.
Kadiyan said he had written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh explaining the arbitrary decisions of the Air India management which had "ruined the company."
In Mumbai, AIEG General Secretary George Abraham said, "We are staging a walk-out and demonstration for two hours as the management has failed to honour its commitment given to the unions to pay our June salaries by today."
There were no reports of disruption of AI services either in Delhi or in Mumbai. However, sources said one flight from New Delhi to London was delayed because of the strike.
The Air India management had earlier conveyed that it would pay its employees salaries for June on July 15th — a delay of 15 days.
However, as the unions threatened to go on strike if they did not get their salary on June 30, the management decided to pay salaries of about 13,000 employees by July 3.
Last month, the airline also asked its top managers to forgo one month's salary as part of efforts to survive the crisis.
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