Press Release from Air India's Air Corp Employees Union

 May 21, 2012

Air Corporations Employees Union, the largest and the oldest employees Union of the Air India has appreciated the Hon’ble Minister for Civil Aviation Chaudhary Ajit Singh for giving assurance to the employees that salaries of the under-privileged employees belonging to ACEU will be paid first.
                The Undersigned General Secretary, Arun Kumar Malhotra and undersigned President Gora Chand Datta were invited to attend the meeting along with other Union at Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan, New Delhi today.
                During the meeting, ACEU’s General Secretary, Shri Malhotra welcome the government’s suggestion that PLI shall be turned profit-linked but with a CAVEAT that if PLI is withdrawn then employees wage revision pending since 2007 shall be granted and 50% of the amount of PLI as already accepted by Justice Dharmadhikari Committee, shall be merged with employees Basic Pay and neutralized to make new Basic Pay.
                Second suggestion made by the Union was to end exclusivity of either of the Unions of erstwhile IA and AI--  “the management should depute narrow bodied employees to wide bodied aircraft and wide bodied employees to the narrow bodied aircraft and this will end all the furore immediately and will also end future exclusivity. Similarly ACEU cadres from narrow bodied aircraft, who are working either on domestic or international operations may be sent for wide bodied operations and wide bodied staff be sent to narrow bodied operations, and this will end the chaos.” Malhotra said.
                Thirdly, the Union attributed failure of the merger to certain vested interests with in Air India who were responsible for integration but they were not willing to integrate the company, and this led to delays and losses. Therefore, the General Secretary expressed his displeasure the way company is run without accountability and stressed on the need to bring in accountability today, otherwise all new ideas of Turnaround Plan will also eventually meet the same fate.
                Fourthly and most importantly, the Union has expressed deep shock over the mismanagement in Air India and informed the Minister that because of mismanagement by vested interest groups, strikes are provoked by some vested groups in the management to benefit other airlines.  The Union also produced letters of management exposing deep rooted conspiracy to trigger strike by instigation and by leveling fabricated charges on top union leaders.  The Union urged the Minister to take immediate action against such individuals responsible for provoking unions for strikes.
                The Hon’ble Minister told the Union that Justice Dharmadhikari Report is being further studied to assess the financial impact and will be soon made public, at the same time the Hon’ble Minister told the officials to bring in public domain the Turnaround Plan and its milestones accepted by Chairman and Managing Director Shri Rohit Nandan.  The Unions agreed to the reply of the Hon’ble Minister.