New Delhi —Employees of India’s national carrier Air
India staged a nationwide two-hour strike on Friday to protest what
they said was management’s failure to pay salaries on time.
The walkout was called by the airline’s two largest unions, despite
a warning from company executives that they would deduct wages from
employees who participated in any stoppage.
Last month the management of the struggling state-run airline —
which merged with government-run domestic carrier Indian Airlines
last year — sent a notice to its employees saying it would defer 73
million dollars in June wages until July 15.
But the carrier later said it would pay salaries to lower-ranked
employees by Friday.
We are staging a walkout and demonstration for two hours as the
management has failed to honour its commitment given to the unions
to pay our June salaries by today,” George Abraham, general
secretary of the Aviation Industry Employees’ Guild told the Press
Trust of India
Air India spokesman Jitendra Bhargava would not comment on whether
or not the employees had been paid, but told AFP: “Once employees go
on agitation, we can’t be seen paying them.”
They should have logically waited until the 3rd, which was the
committed date, rather than having announced agitation on the 2nd.”
Employees staged demonstrations and shouted slogans outside company
offices in the capital New Delhi and Mumbai, but all flights were
reported to be operating normally. Last month the airline also asked
its top managers to forgo one month’s salary as part of efforts to
survive the crisis.
A combination of high fuel prices, fewer passengers and the global
financial meltdown have left Air India with an estimated 800 million
dollars in losses for the past year and debt of four billion
dollars, according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation.
