India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Air India has derecognized two major trade unions and sealed their offices in Mumbai. The affected trade unions are the Air Corporation Employees Union (ACEU) and the All India Aircraft Engineers Association (AIAEA). Several union leaders have reportedly been sacked. However, the trade unions remained defiant and called the airline management's decision 'dictatorial'. "Arvind Jadhav has not called even a single meeting with the union. He had appointed nine sub-committees in the Turn Around Committee (appointed last year by Air India 's management), in which we had nominated nine representatives from the union," said ACEU President Dinakar Shetty. "For your information, none of those committees has met till now, because the chairman of the Turn Around Committee is Jadhav himself," he added. The decision came soon after the two-day flash strike by the employees ended in the wake of the Delhi High Court declaring it illegal on Wednesday. "The activity that Arvind Jadhav is doing in the company is nothing less than dictatorship," alleged Shetty. Shetty, however, threatened to go on a strike again after additional information on terminations comes in. Over 20,000 Air India crewmembers and maintenance engineers had gone on a flash strike protesting against an order issued by the AI management following the Saturday's plane crash incident at Mangalore. The striking employees were upset over the management's gag order prohibiting some of its leaders to speak out in public on the Mangalore crash. The order that was issued after the air crash at Mangalore on Saturday (May 22), non-payment of salaries was another reason for the staff to go on strike.

Air India seals major trade union offices in Mumbai