AAI employees grounded

Over 300 employees belonging to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) yesterday gathered at the Press Club in south Mumbai to protest against the mass victimisation of AAI workers.
Deepti Gopinath, general secretary of the Indian Airports Employees Union said, "In May 2006, Mumbai Airports were privatised and the Airports Authority of India handed it over to a Joint Venture Company called Mumbai International Airports (P) Ltd (MIAL). AAI now only owns 26 percent of this company and the rest is with private companies of which of course the foreign company, South African Airports Company, is the largest shareholder.
"?The airports have been leased out for a period of 30 years. As expected, now, MIAL and the AAI have turned on the workers and the first victims are 70 so-called contract workers. Most of these workers have been employed in the AAI for the past almost 20 years, and since 1993 the contractors have been removed and the workers have been continued directly under the AAI. Most of these workers have their services protected by the Mumbai High Court orders and even today the orders continue."
Speaking further on the issue, Deepti said, ?The claim of the workers before the courts continues to be against the AAI and even nine months since privatisation, AAI has been paying these workers. However, last month the AAI suddenly claimed that MIAL must now directly pay them. This is inspite of the fact that there is an express clause in the agreement between the AAI and MIAL, that all cases which were pending prior to privatisation will continue to be the responsibility of the AAI and also that the workers wages will be paid to AAI by MIAL from a corpus created, and AAI will disburse the same to the workers."
04/05/07 Afternoon Dispatch & Courier

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Categories: Airports May 2007