Airline unions plan to form national body

Mumbai: Even as the dust settles on the bruising battle between Jet Airways (India) Ltd and its pilots, there are new moves to bring all airline employees in India under a single trade union and perhaps alter the bargaining balance between airlines and their 60,000-plus workforce.
Indian airline employees are currently divided into several unions depending on the nature of their job and the company they work for. The public sector National Aviation Co. of India Ltd (Nacil), which operates the Air India fleet, alone has around 20 unions.
A person close to the development said representatives of two low-fare carriers and one full-service carrier met international trade union representatives in the city last week to discuss the possibilities of forming a union in their respective carriers.
He did not want to be identified and share the name of carriers as the case is too sensitive.
Mahendra Sharma, regional secretary (Asia-Pacific region) of International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) confirmed that some of the airline officials met him to explore possibilities of forming a union. At least 654 unions representing 4.5 million transport workers in 148 countries are members of ITF.
The office bearers of Jet’s NAG had said it would like to be affiliated with the International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Associations, which represents at least 100,000 professional pilots in around 100 countries across the world.
The Air India Industry Employees’ Guild has already been renamed as Aviation Industry Employees’ Guild and could emerge as the apex airline trade union in the country.
21/09/09 P.R. Sanjai/Livemint

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Sep 2009