Indian staff to go on mass leave on May 18

Mumbai: The services of government-owned Indian Airlines (IA) will be disrupted on Thursday and Friday on account of employee protests over wage arrears.
On May 17, employees affiliated to the Air Corporation Employees' Union (ACEU), the biggest of the airline's seven unions, will stage a walk-out between 9 and 11.30 a m. On May 18, they will take mass casual leave. ACEU accounts for 14,000 of Indian Airlines's 18,000 employees.
Though pilots and engineers will not be a part of the strike, flight operations will come to a standstill since ground-handling services will be disrupted. There will be no ground staff for loading, unloading, boarding assistance, passenger coach management and other critical activities.
The decision to go on the offensive was taken after parleys between the union and IA management broke down. ACEU has demanded that employees be paid ten years' arrears on wages, which the management said would result in an unacceptably high outgo of Rs 500 crore.
Although IA said the issue would be sorted out in the presence of a labour conciliation officer, the airline has drawn up a contingency plan for rescheduling and combining flights.
16/05/07 Business Standard

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Categories: Indian May 2007