Our pay isn't the problem, retort Air India staff unions

Mumbai, Delhi: Air India's staff unions, faced with strong management pressure for pay cuts, retort that 80 per cent of employees take less than a third of the yearly Rs 3,500 crore (Rs 35 billion) wage bill.
Put another way, when National Aviation Company of India's wage bill is described as impossible to sustain, the unions say it is due in large part to the salaries paid to the same brass which wants pay cuts, apart from other creamy layers such as pilots and engineers, who get quite a bit through productivity-linked incentives.
Hence, say the unions, it is these sections which need to take the hit in salaries, not their members.
"We represent 80 per cent of the total employees which belong to the low pay category, with average salaries of Rs 15,000 a month. This 80 per cent takes away only 30 per cent of the wage bill. Licensed engineers get productivity incentives which are three times their salary, even though they are not in short supply. The pilots also get huge variable emoluments. The company should look at them, as there is hardly any scope of (pay) reduction from our members," says Dinkar Shetty, president of the Air Corporation Employees Union, the largest union.
Other unions representing non-managerial staff spoke likewise.
24/06/09 Business Standard/Rediff.com

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Categories: NACIL Jun 2009