Air India has provided an additional window for pilots to sign the new employment contract, the last date for which was April 30. Pilots now have time till the end of this week to reconsider their decision and accept the new terms.
This extension comes at a time when Air India is holding recruitment drives across Bengaluru, Gurugram and Mumbai to hire pilots for Boeing 737 where several Go First pilots seem to have applied.
According to sources over 50 percent pilots have accepted the new terms and the airline reopened the window to give another chance for those who hadn’t signed previously and are now eager to come on board.
However, pilots from the two unions who CNBC-TV18 spoke to said they haven’t signed the new contract. The unions’ members are holding a meeting today to chart out their further course of action.
Earlier the pilots’ unions had threatened of ‘industrial unrest’ if the airline forces them to accept or sign the terms & conditions of the new employment contract. The two unions – Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association & Indian Pilots’ Guild – had called the revised terms & conditions ‘labour-hostile, unfair and unethical.’
Some of the clauses that pilots are opposed to are sudden modifications to roster. They allege that management is promoting Senior Commanders to management cadre to undermine the union. Pilots also say the guaranteed allowance of 40 hours per month is subject to he/she flying for those many hours.
The unions had even approached Ratan Tata seeking his intervention in addressing their grievances.
But recent developments in the aviation sector particularly the grounding of Go First for now has put Air India pilots in a dilemma.
Will the shutting down of another airline lead to an influx of job-seeking pilots? And will this put pressure on existing Air India pilots to give up their fight?
The answer to these and many more such questions will be clear only in the coming days.
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