Air India crisis: HR issues behind carrier's union unrest

The government's resolve to implement the Justice Dharmadhikari Committee's report on human resource (HR) integration in Air India is fuelling unrest in the carrier's unions.
Pilots affiliated to the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG-Air India) who are on strike for 30 days are unhappy as the report allegedly favours Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA-Indian Airlines) in pay and career progression. The ground staff are also peeved that their allowances would be drastically cut.
Employees of Air India get productivity-linked incentives (PLI), which constitute a major portion of the pay package. PLI will now be scrapped as no lossmaking public sector undertaking allows such incentives. This issue is going to snowball into a big crisis and aviation consultancy firm Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (Capa) has predicted that the Maharaja could face a temporary shutdown due to massive HR issues.
Since 2009, AI employees have organised six strikes-three by pilots and the rest by disgruntled ground staff demanding salary payment.
According to experts, now that a partial lockout is apprehended due to the chain of strikes, the government should immediately start an aggressive plan to offer voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) to reduce the workforce and contain the unrest by offering an attractive package.
05/06/12 Lalatendu Mishra/Mail Today/India Today

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

Categories: Air India Jun 2012