Weido salt
Would you accept a 70% overall wage cut in your salary overnight?
These “selfish “pilots as you have put it, have not for the past 3 months been paid their salaries in full or on time. These pilots did not strike overnight and put the passengers in a quandary. They have been attempting to meet the management repeatedly over the past 3 months to resolve various issues that the management has been throwing at them through dialogue. Air India management has refused to engage in dialogue with them earlier regarding any of this. The management also have had enough time to think about the impact on the travelling public and prepare for the possibility of a strike knowing that it would be in the offing, if they refused to address the pilots and their grievances. As we speak right now, it’s now not only the pilots but various other sections of Air India that are joining in the strike.
What’s interesting is, that while we talk about recession and the global impact of it, in India there was a published report today on how the politicians/ministers have seen a threefold increase in wealth in the last five years. Our erstwhile Civil Aviation Minister is worth just as much as the leading industrialist of this country. And no, he does not depend on his salary that he gets from the Govt. The ones who have bled Air India dry are not its employees that are salaried individuals, who get paid for the work they have put in.....no one has been paid a $ more than they should be, but these ministers and especially our Civil Aviation minister who is single handedly responsible for driving to Air India to the ground.
Whether it’s the pilots striking today or Air India shutting down permanently, (while holding the pilots solely responsible for this), let’s not forget there is a bigger picture at play here and it does not involve the salaried employees or travelling public and their woes. A select few ministers/politicians are going to gain immensely from this shutdown when it happens and are directing it in a manner to ensure that it does happen.