AI announces 'no work, no pay' principle as strike continues

New Delhi, May 3 (PTI) Air India on Tuesday announced
'no work, no pay' principle will be implemented to counter the
pilots' strike that continued to disrupt its flights for the
seventh day, as the Delhi High Court rapped both sides for
their adamant attitude and failure to resolve the crisis.
"We are implementing 'no work, no pay' against all
those who are not reporting for duty. Their April salary will
not be processed if they do not join work", an Air India
officer said.
The officer, who requested anonymity, said the company
was making efforts to garner resources to pay the salaries to
the rest of the employees. Bank loans were also being
organised, he said.
The flight operations of the national carrier
continued to be disrupted for the seventh day on Tuesday with
the striking pilots refusing to budge saying they would call
off the stir as soon as the management assured the Delhi High
Court that their demands would be considered within a
time-frame.
The court rapped both the airline management and the
pilots' union, Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA),
for their rigid attitude and appointed an amicus curiae to
assist it in resolving the stand off.
"It seems that you are also not interested in getting
the strike called off," a division bench headed by Justice B
D Ahmed told Lalit Bhasin, the counsel for the Air India
management.
The two-judge bench also appointed senior lawyer
Siddharth Luthra as amicus curaie "to assist us on the legal
issues".
The ailing national carrier is flying only about 35-40
flights each day, as it has blocked domestic bookings for the
past five days.
According to official estimates, private carriers were
flying about 15,000-16,000 of passengers of AI, which is
offering only about 9,000 seats each day. The airline has
drastically slashed its domestic services by nearly 90 per
cent operating only 40 of its 320 daily flights.
"We will await the High Court's order on the contempt
proceedings and abide by it. .... I have already stated that
there will be no talks with the pilots till they are on
strike," Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi has said.
He has been regularly briefing Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh on the daily developments relating to the situation
arising out of the pilots strike and the high court
proceedings.
ICPA leaders have made it clear to the court that they
would call off the strike as soon as the management gave an
undertaking to consider their demands within a given time-
frame.
They have said that the Chief Labour Commissioner, in
its closure report on the last round of tripartite talks, had
blamed the management for not making any efforts to resolve
the issues.
They quoted the CLC's closure report on the
conciliation proceedings as saying that the management had
shown "an insincere and superficial attitude towards reaching
an amicable solution".
The pilots, who struck work from midnight last
Tuesday, have been demanding pay parity with their colleagues
of erstwhile Air India, better working conditions and CBI
inquiry into alleged withdrawal of flights from profitable
routes, aircraft purchase and other issues.