Unions oppose Centre's move to hive off Air India services

**Mumbai:**Days after the government decided tohive off Air India’s engineering and ground handling services,seven unions today opposed the move and sought an urgentmeeting with the management over the issue.

“We will continue opposing the move. We will never accepttransfer of manpower from the main company to the two proposedsubsidiaries because, if after a year, the management altersour service conditions, we will not be in a position tonegotiate”, a leader of one of the seven unions’ joint forum

said, requesting anonymity.

He, however, said if the airline sends the personnel on deputation to the subsidiaries, instead of effecting outrighttransfers, that could be acceptable to the unions.

In a letter to CMD today, the seven unions said, “Werequest you to share some of your precious time to discuss themodalities of such a mechanism. We all look forward to seek anappointment with you” to discuss the issue.

The unions sought a consensual approach to resolve suchvexed issues, saying it would help in creating a conduciveclimate in the company.“We request you to pioneer a mechanism with therepresentatives of all associations, unions and guilds, priorto the major policies affecting the services of the employeesvis-a-vis existing service conditions,” the unions said.

The unions are the Indian Pilots Guild, All India ServiceEngineers Association, AI Aircraft Engineers Association, AIEngineers Association, AI Employees Union, Air CorporationEmployees Union and AI Officers Association.

The unions are opposed to the move on the grounds that itwould result in large-scale displacement of workers and alsoaffect their service conditions.

The Union Cabinet had last week approved the airline’sproposal to spin off its engineering and ground handlingservices into two wholly-owned subsidiaries. The proposal islikely to lead to the relocation of around 19,000 employees,

including about 11,000 on contract, out of a 38,000 workforce,to the two subsidiaries.

PTI