New Delhi: Employees of the national carrier Air India Tuesday went on a flash strike in protest against a gag order issued by the management.
All engineers, cabin crew and ground staff of the cash-strapped carrier went on strike.
The strike comes a day after the management issued an internal notification to employees, warning them against airing their views about the airline in public.
According to sources, the management has also served show cause notices to a few union leaders for speaking to the public about the carrier.
YV Raju, general secretary of Air India’s All-India Aircraft Engineers Association, had told a newspaper Monday that the carrier broke all safety norms by getting an unqualified engineer to certify its Airbus aircraft.
Raju’s remarks came hours after an Air India Express aircraft crashed at the Mangalore airport killing around 160 people.
Air India employees said the gag order was an attempt by the company to restrict their “right to speech”.
“At a time when the company should be focussing on Mangalore, it is trying to stifle our voice. This won’t work. There are registered trade unions in AI, recognised by the company itself,” an Air India employee was quoted as saying by a newspaper Tuesday.
The notification states that instances have come to notice that contrary to previous orders, “certain employees… are freely airing their views in the media despite channels of communication existing within the company to voice their grievances”, the paper reported.
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