AITUC seeks Hardeep Singh Puri's intervention to save jobs of 2,500 workers at Chennai Airport

The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) on Friday sought the intervention of Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri to protect the jobs of 2,500 workers employed with ground and cargo handling agency BILL at Chennai Airport.

There are fears that the workers of Bhadra International India Ltd (BILL) at the airport may lose job after the ground and cargo handling work is given to some other contractor or firm.

"The Airports Authority of India (AAI) being their Principal Employer, I urge upon you to appropriately mandate absorption of all the workers in their respective scale of employment and wages by either the AAI CLAS (Cargo Logistics and Allied Services Company Ltd) or any other contractor who may be licensed to carry out the Cargo and ground handling services at Chennai Airport," AITUC General Secretary Amarjeet Kaur said in a letter to the Minister on Friday.

AITUC appealed to the Minister to intervene at the earliest so as to save the job of workers.

"Even if one worker is rendered jobless then it questions the veracity and meaning of the laws ensuring job security. Please consider our appeal in the right earnest and do all that is required to ensure the protection of job and wages with continuity in the services of all the 2,500 workers presently employed with BILL," the letter added.

While the formation of AAI CLAS as a subsidiary of AAI to carry out cargo and allied services is a welcome move, the consequential impact should be positive and provide more success and welfare to the workers in that sector, it stated.

Majority of the 2,500 workers have been working at the airport through various contractors engaged by AAI.

"They are skilled and acclimatized with the state of the art technology that operates in Chennai Airport. They are human assets to carry forward at a time when the industry is getting out of the impact of the lockdown and set to grow manifold in future," it added.