Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 10 (IANS) Chief Labour Commissioner S.K. Mukhopadhyay will facilitate conciliation talks between the Jet Airways and its striking pilots here Friday. As the impasse continued for the third day running, the carrier was forced to cancel 230 flights.
“The conciliation talks with the chief labour commissioner will be held here tomorrow,” Jet Airways executive director Saroj Datta told reporters after meeting the commissioner at Shram Shakti Bhavan, the labour ministry headquarters.

The meeting, initially slated to have been held Thursday, had to be postponed as representatives of the pilots had not turned up for the talks, Datta said.

The Jet management insists that the 600 pilots, who reported sick Tuesday and went on mass leave, should provide medical certificates. The pilots, on the other hand, say they would report to work only when pilots who had been sacked were taken back.

A contempt petition was filed against the striking pilots late Wednesday for defying the Bombay High Court ruling that asked them not to halt work.

According to a Jet Airways spokesperson, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud of the Bombay High Court has directed a contempt notice to be issued to the National Aviators Guild (NAG), of which the striking pilots are members. It will be heard here Monday.

“Everybody is against us,” Girish Kaushik, president of the National Aviators Guild (NAG), an association of Jet Airways pilots who have gone on strike, told reporters in Mumbai Thursday.

“There is ESMA, court restrictions. I am afraid they would now impose TADA.” he said referring to the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act. “Are there no laws to save us? What have our boys done?”.

In another development, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal met Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge at Karnataka Bhawan in the capital Thursday.

“If there is a need of my ministry’s intervention, we will do that,” Kharge told reporters after the meeting.

The carrier’s ground staff also appealed to the pilots to withdraw their agitation and “not put our future at risk”.

“We are already going through recession. Our salaries will be delayed. The airline is already undergoing losses. The pilots cannot put our future at risk,” customer care executive Jagjeet Kaur told reporters in Delhi.

Added Ashwani, a Jet Airways supervisor: “We appeal to the pilots to give up their agitation. Our airline is making losses and now due to the pilots’ agitation, our revenue is going to other airlines. How will we get our salaries?”

The strike has caused nearly 700 flights to be cancelled since Tuesday and has inconvenienced over 28,000 passengers.