Cabin crew say AI compulsory leave is layoffs via backdoor

NEW DELHI: The cabin crew of Air India has told the management that the compulsor y leave scheme is a smokescreen for retrenchment by the backdoor and has demanded that it be kept in abeyance.

The All India Cabin Crew Association in a letter to Air India management said that AICCA records its strong protest at this circular and fears that this compulsory leave scheme is a smokescreen for a retrenchment/layoff scheme by the back door and is in gross violation of various Supreme Court orders, including the Constitutional bench judgment on Section 25, and infringes on the Air India SC case on hand.

"We note with great concern that the said circular purports to send employees on Compulsory Leave without Pay, by the CMD, as recommended by the RD & regional officials. This is highly arbitrar y & subjective and is a violation of the Certified Standing Orders (Amended) of erstwhile Air India, as applicable to us," the cabin crew members said.

"Respectfully, we must also note that the circular & the board resolution itself are illegal as they violate the CSO, 9A of the ID Act and most importantly infringe on a matter that is being heard by the Hon Supreme Court of India, where we are a party. The larger bench of the Apex court is hearing the matter of Ser vice Conditions, Standing Orders & 9A, and this circular violates that and brings in alien concepts of redundancies, merely to skirt existing retrenchment laws," the letter said.