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| 'Indian' strike called off | | |
NEW DELHI, JUN 14
Agitating employees of the state-run Indian today called off their strike after the airline management and the Civil Aviation Ministry assured to address the long-pending demands including implementation of career progression scheme.
The Ministry's top brass agreed to reinstate 27 suspended employees besides assuring to implement career progression which is currently in vogue in Air India.
"We held dicussions with the representatives of the Union and have agreed to release wage arrears of Rs 267 crore to be paid in 18 months," Civil Aviation Secretary Ashok Chawla said after emerging from a three-hour meeting with the Air Corporation Employees Union (ACEU) which was spearheading the strike.
"We have called off the strike following assurances by the Ministry and the management. We expect to sign the agreement tomorrow morning," ACEU General Secretary J K Badola told reporters after the meeting.
Around 13,000 employees of the airline had gone on a flash strike on Tuesday night demanding parity in promotions with Air India and wage arrears.
The strike triggered chaos in major airports as a large number of flights were cancelled or delayed for the past two days.
"The flight operations will come to normal within a few hours," both Chawla and Badola said.
The meeting, attended by Chawla, Joint Secretary Raghu Menon, the union members and the management, including the CMD of Indian Vishwapati Trivedi, were present.
Chawla said there were some minor issues which have been amicably settled.
He said the government will not face any additional financial burden following the release of the wage arrears of Rs 267 crore.
"The matter of the suspended employees will be looked into by the Chief Labour Officer. He will go into each case merit," he said.
Badola said that it has been agreed that the arrears will be cleared on or before December 31, 2008. "The secretary had resolved few of our other demands earlier. But the matter was stuck on the issue of releasing the wage arrears," he said.
He said the government wanted to release it in 60 instalment, but finally agreed to their demand of releasing the amount in 18 months time.
The agreement will be signed tomorrow, he said. "We are waiting for our Kolkata and Chennai regional secretaries before we sign the agreement," he said.
"With the agreement on time-bound promotions, the stagnation will end," Badola said.
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