Air India employees to get salary July 3 without cuts

New Delhi, June 29 : Yielding to pressure from its employees, cash-strapped national carrier Air India Monday decided to give them their June salary July 3, instead of July 15 it decided earlier.

'The management has told us that we would get our salaries on July 3. They have also assured us that there will be no wage cut,' J.B. Kadian, general secretary of the Air Corp Employees' Union (ACEU), told IANS.

ACEU is the largest union among the Air India employees.

The airline employees get their salary on the last day of the month. Earlier Air India had announced that it would delay the June salary by 15 days and also asked the top executives of the airline to forgo their one month pay.

The employees' union protested this move, saying they would go on an indefinite strike from July 1 if the decision was not revoked.

Kadian said the top executives would also get their salary.

ACEU and other unions have been holding hectic discussions with the management for over a week.

But they failed to reach a consensus on the airline's proposal to cut costs.

Air India, which incurred a loss of Rs.4,000 crore last fiscal, plans to ask for a Rs.10,000-crore (about $2 billion) bailout package from the central government.

Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last Wednesday and discussed the bailout plan with him.

The prime minister suggested him to adopt various cost-cutting measures to improve the financial condition of the National Aviation Co India Ltd (NACIL), which owns Air India.

--IANS