New Delhi: Around 40 Kingfisher Airlines‘ employees took out a candle light vigil to Jantar Mantar this evening to show solidarity with the family of their colleague whose wife allegedly committed suicide due to financial burden. They also protested the non payment of their salaries for the past seven months.
A ground staff who was part of the group and who identified herself only as Aakriti said that she felt betrayed by the company. “We haven’t received our salaries for the last six months despite repeated assurances from the management. We work hard and we feel very betrayed by this,” she said.
Kingfisher employees in a protest march in Delhi. PTI.
Aakriti, clad in the red Kingfisher uniform, joined the company a year ago and said that the problems had started as far back as last December.
Another staffer in her late 30s said she felt the company was to blame for the death of the wife of Manas Chakravarty, who was part of the technical support team of Kingfisher.
The employee, who said she knew Chakravarty and did not want to be named, told Firstpost, “We think the company is responsible for the death of his wife. If his dues were paid the situation wouldn’t have arisen at all.”
“I haven’t received my salary for eight months now,” she said.
Even as several employees of the debt-stricken airline joined in the candle light vigil, none were open to identifying themselves as they feared legal action against them by the Kingfisher authorities.
Unlike Air India, Kingfisher doesn’t have a union to back them. A few of the participants in the rally told Firstpost that they might be sacked and their dues wouldn’t be cleared if they ended up being named in a media report.
“We can’t talk about these things on record. Tomorrow we may suffer even more than we are suffering today,” said a male employee at the vigil.
Aakriti told Firstpost that the company and management should be dealt with severely for putting its employees through so much mental trauma and financial constraint.
“I’m not dependent on my parents and family for money and neither are they. But I’ve seen many sole bread earners suffer because of the company’s casual treatment of its employees and I can understand what they must be going through,” she told Firstpost, adding, “They (company management) should be put through this and then they will know what it feels like.”
