I hope many of you noticed the earth shattering that happened in Indian business circles. No it is not our growth story. First time in the history of Air India, the management actually terminated employees for discipline related issues. Yes, sit down take a breath; good things do happen in life. Finally, the government realized that the slight tingling in the back was actually the spine; it realized that to a limited extent in this case. I hope and pray when the next strike happens, it shouldn’t be too long, and the government really cleans out dead wood which is most of the employees of this behemoth.
Like typical government entities, the employees of this airline have become a self-perpetuating pool of folks, who firmly believe that the airline exists only for their jobs and not to service customers.
What is all the more shocking is the reason for the present strike. AI wanted aircraft urgently flown into the gulf to bring in families of the recent crash that happened at Mangalore. Somehow, AIs engineering staff weren’t available and it got the permission by getting it certified by engineers of another airline, nothing illegal. That is it, all hell broke loose with engineers resorting to flash strike and a more than willing happy family of unions joining the strike and ground the airline to a halt. Instead of the thanking the other engineers who took care of an emergency for them, all this was resorted to. Pay and other unrelated items, for which other strike notices are pending were all rolled into one and flash strike started.
Usually, there is a compliant judiciary which has always put the interest of socialistic employment goals ahead of customer welfare. Not this time, the Delhi HC in a remarkable display of spine, termed the strike as illegal, though the Bombay HC didn’t!
The management, after clearance from Maatha Sonia, showed spine as well and started dismissing people. Now, there is going to be a strike protesting against the dismissals, which were a result of an illegal strike call. But somehow, this time I am not holding my breath. Proper notices etc. have been given, so avoid Air India like a plague.
It is high time that the government shut down this behemoth and sold of the asset piece meal we might actually get some return on the thousands of crores we have sunk into this cesspool of an airline… It is not even worth it to privatize this airline and try to preserve even one job of the existing employee pool, period.
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