Air India strike risk

New Delhi, June 17: Air India’s employees have threatened to go on a strike on June 30 toward protest the company’s decision to delay their salaries.

Air India officials, however, said the strike was unlikely to take place. Earlier, Air India director Jitendra Bhargava has said the airline would be paying the June salaries on July 15 instead of the first of the month because of a temporary cash crunch.

The state-run airline, which is likely to report a massive loss of approximately Rs 4,300 crore for fiscal 2008-09, is facing a “temporary cash flow imbalance”.

“Members of the Air Corporation Employees Union (ACEU), the Aviation Industry Employees’ Guild also the Indian Aircraft Technicians’ Association will jointly boycott work on June 30 by adopting a ‘no pay, no work’ policy if the management fails to give us our salary on June 30,” said J.B. Kadiyan, general secretary of ACEU.

“Since everyone will be joining the protest, present will not be any movement of the airline’s aircraft on that day,” Kadiyan said.

The ACEU be the largest trade union of Air India employees with over 22,000 members. National Aviation Company of India Ltd, which owns Air India, has about 31,000 employees.