Was AI strike stage-managed?

Chennai: Air India (AI) pilots union has now accused the management of stage-managing the strike by executive pilots, which started on September 26 and went on for about a week, with a view to causing more loss to the company.
In a letter to the CMD, Arvind Jadhav, on Monday, the all India general secretary of the Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association (ICPA), Capt Otaal, has alleged that the management had planned the executive pilot’s strike at a meeting of the executive pilots on September 19 at Hotel Mount Manor in Chennai, which was chaired by Capt Chetan Prakash, GM-Operations (Southern Region) of AI.
Union sources claim that the meeting was not an official one and no official communication was sent out. Executive pilots were asked to assemble at the venue through phone calls and SMS.Union sources ask: If the management was not a part of the strike, what was Capt Chetan Prakash doing there? Exactly a week after that, executive pilots went on strike.
Official sources of AI, however, say that the allegation is ‘preposterous’.
The allegations are made by union leaders after one of their office-bearers received a letter from Capt Chetan’s office on Sunday demanding an explanation from him for talking to the media, which it said was a violation of service rules. Capt Sabu, secretary of ICPA (Southern Region), who received the notice, told Express that the management was trying to scuttle the negotiations with the union on the strike notice served in the Mumbai labour commissioner’s office on November 11.
17/11/09 Mamta Todi/ExpressBuzz

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: NACIL Nov 2009