Air India employees continue with strike

New Delhi: State-owned Air India (AI) is yet to convince its 31,700 employees to take a wage cut to save the loss-making company. Two employee unions, Aviation Industry Employees Guild (AIEG) and Air Corporation Employees Union (ACEU), continued their flash hunger-strike on Wednesday protesting against the management’s intention to cut productivity-linked incentives by half. The two unions represent over 50% of the airline’s total staff.
“The management wants to halve our productivity-linked incentives (PLI) and we have objected to it. Our share of the total PLI bill annually is just 18%. If that is cut by 50%, it would be difficult for us to meet our financial needs,” AIEG secretary VJ Deka said. AI’s annual wage bill is about Rs 3,500 crore, of which about Rs 1,400 crore is on account of PLI.
The airline, which incurred a loss of over Rs 5,000 crore in 2008-09, came under fire from several sections of the government including Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for doling out cash incentives in the form of PLI. A committee of secretaries (CoS), which is considering AI’s proposal seeking government’s financial help, is scheduled to review cost-cutting exercise on August 29.
Mr Deka said that there was huge disparity in PLI to various categories of employees.
27/08/09 Economic Times

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Categories: NACIL Aug 2009