AIESL technicians on strike; Air India ops see minor disruptions

Around 1,700 engineers and technicians of state-owned plane upkeep firm AI Engineering Services Ltd (AIESL) went on strike Tuesday morning resulting in minor disruptions in operations of the Tata group-owned airline Air India.

The technicians — who deal with jobs comparable to upkeep works, plane refueling, marshalling, and so forth — have been in negotiations with the AIESL administration over the previous few months within the presence of a labour commissioner, however on Monday introduced they had been occurring a “tools down agitation” Tuesday onwards.

While an Air India spokesperson stated that no flights from Delhi had been delayed, an official on the airline stated there have been minor delays and some cancellations on account of the technicians’ strike. “The disruptions could be more if this is extended,” the official stated, on situation of anonymity.

AIESL was a subsidiary of Air India however was not packaged with the airline throughout its disinvestment. The Centre has plans to individually disinvest AIESL, which has presence in Delhi, Nagpur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram.

In a letter to the Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner, the group of AIESL plane technicians demanded wage revision, implementation of full-time employment guidelines and inclusion of dearness allowance of their pay.

The technicians had in January known as for an agitation after having written to the AIESL administration, however postponed it after talks started between them. Another strike name was proposed final month, however was postponed once more. As per sources, most of those staff are on a contractual foundation and are demanding advantages.