After a few marathon meetings between Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav and the airline?s union, the management has come to a conclusion to pay salaries to certain employees. The management has agreed to pay salaries to AI employees in the grade I-IX category on July 3.
Also, Indian Airlines? staff in the categories of Grade I, II, III and VI will also be given their pay on the same day. Over 7,000 employees would get their salary on the decided date. However, on July 4, the management would again meet the unions to decide on the date for salary payment to remaining employees. There are nearly 35,000 employees at AI.
Previously, Nacil (National Aviation Company of India Ltd) which owns AI, had announced that salary for June would be deferred by 15 days. Earlier, the Mumbai Regional Labour Commissioner had called a meeting between representatives of Air India management and employee unions on July 6. This was considered a normal process when some issues are involved between the management and unions.
Meanwhile, Nacil which is projected to post losses of Rs 4,000 crore for FY 08-09 has asked its senior executives to forgo salary for July. This would mean a saving of Rs 45 crore for the month. The carrier is finding it difficult to infuse equity and hence the CMD had to take up the challenge of requesting its staff to forgo salaries. He intends to keep the company afloat at a time when its cash reserves have almost diminished.
Nacil is also working on plans to reduce its expenditure on employees by Rs 500 crore per annum. It has formed a committee to re-examining wage and other agreements in consultation with the unions. The loss-ridden airline?s employee cost currently is over Rs 3,000 crore annually.
The carrier has constituted a four member committee, comprising of officials from HR and finance to examine the wage agreements, including flying allowances and productivity linked incentives, entered into between the management and unions. The committee has been asked to submit its report latest by July 15.
