Air India Engineering Employees Defer May 24 Strike

Permanent employees of Air India Engineering Services Ltd. have deferred their strike, following discussions with management representatives during a meeting convened by the Labour Department, people familiar with the matter told PTI.

On May 6, a section of the permanent engineers of AIESL threatened to go on strike from May 24, demanding immediate implementation of their long-pending revised salary payments.

The forum represents around 1,700 staff at the company that provides engineering services to mainly Air India, as well as a few other airlines. It has aircraft maintenance engineers, service engineers and allied cadre unions of permanent employees of erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines, who were transferred to AIESL.

On May 22, a meeting was held between the representatives of the unions and the management in the presence of the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) and others in the national capital.

The next meeting is scheduled to be held on June 24 and after that meeting, a decision on the strike is likely to be taken, PTI reported citing sources.

The Aviation Industry Employees’ Guild, All India Service Engineers’ Association, Air Corporation Employees’ Union, and Indian Aircraft Technicians’ Associations inked a wage revision agreement in January this year.

Earlier this month, the forum said the agreement was signed after more than 15 years, with the aim of ending several litigations, discrimination of pay implementation and services conditions, among other issues.

While noting that the agreement is yet to be implemented, it had also cited the company’s recent commitment to provide arrears to contractual employees.

“This is blatant discrimination against the permanent employees, who are deprived of their legitimate claim for wage revision since long,” the forum had said and claimed that it is also an unfair labour practice.

In April, the union representing the company’s Fixed Term Employment staff had called for a strike on April 23. It was later withdrawn after reaching a settlement regarding their grievances, including on salary revision and promotion.

AIESL, which has more than 5,000 staff, provides base and line maintenance as well as overhaul of landing gear, avionics accessories and components, among others. It is under the AI Assets Holding Ltd. after the disinvestment of Air India in 2022.

(With inputs from PTI)