Air India Opens Hiring For Various Positions Even As Employees Protest Leave Without Pay Policy

Adding insult to injury of employees as they protest what they call "a draconian" Leave Without Pay (LWP) policy going up to five years, Air India is on a recruitment drive to hire new people.

Air India Express has put out an advertisement to hire in the finance and medical services department. The general principle is that if a company is laying off people and sending them on long leave without pay, then it does not hire fresh personnel.

In the advertisement, Air India Express has invited applications from Indian citizens (wherever domiciled) for the posts on a fixed term contract basis.

The positions in the medical services department include Chief Medical Officer and Senior Assistant, Medical.

The positions open for hiring in the Finance Department include Deputy Chief of Finance, Manager-Finance and Deputy Manager-Finance.

Interested and eligible candidates have been asked to submit their applications within 15 days of this advertisement.

This will add fuel to the fire as employees across the board from pilots to service engineers are protesting pay cuts and Leave Without Pay in Air India. The company is also on the block for privatisation.

Air India has justified the cut in allowances of existing employees by citing the precarious financial position due to Covid-19.

Air India said in a tweet, "There has been no reduction in the Basic pay, DA and HRA of any category of employees. The rationalisation of allowances had to be implemented on account of the difficult financial condition of the airline that were exacerbated by COVID-19."

The pilots have questioned this claim and said that this is a devious plan to ensure a minuscule pay cut for senior AI officials. Basic Pay, HRA and DA constitutes 80 per cent of Gross Pay for senior AI officials.

"By 'rationalising' the allowances only, pilots and cabin crew are hit worst as it forms 80 per cent of our gross pay. Doesn't the difficult financial condition of the airline warrant a contribution from the management too based on their actual cost to company or just flying crew alone?" the pilots said in a letter.

(With inputs from IANS)