Pilot fires
The civil aviation ministry, which has handled the Air India pilots’ strike, showed an alarming softness in dealing with what is egregious white-collar activism in a struggling company. The Air India management took a sensible, firm line to begin with: the pilot’s union leading the strike that has disrupted air travel all over India was de-recognised, its nine leaders fired. It was at that point that the civil aviation ministry stepped in, greatly diluting the strength of the response, allowing the strike to continue for longer, and signalling to those of Air India’s employees hoping to squeeze something extra out of the taxpayer, that the Centre is a soft touch.
What did the civil aviation ministry do? On Tuesday, Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi said, “If the agitating pilots of Air India call off their strike, the airline management will take back the pilots who were terminated.” That was unacceptably weak. Flights were cancelled; a loss-making enterprise was driven further into the red; travel schedules of tens of thousands of Indians were horrendously upset. Who will be held accountable for this?
And it won’t just be the pilots that will be reinstated; the entire association, which was appropriately de-recognised, will be formally
re-recognised. The civil aviation ministry has demonstrated a complete lack of spine in this respect, and an unwillingness to consider the fact that it is empowering provocateurs who will only continue to make trouble. These are not oppressed workers by any stretch of the imagination, but white-collar employees who through a loophole in the law are considered “manual workers”. They are a set of overpaid professionals who were angry that their bankrupt company is not overpaying them as it is some other overpaid professionals. Because the bankrupt company in question is state-run, they thought they could blackmail the state into handing over taxpayer money to supplement their already above-market salaries. This was a moment the Centre should have seized to articulate a vision of Air India’s future in which costs are cut, excess workforce shed, and the company taken off the taxpayer’s payroll. Returning to status quo ante is not the solution, and the civil aviation ministry should not think that it is. Air India will inevitably be shut; treating it like a PSU, its employees like errant children, will only prolong the agony.
Yellow vs Red
Calling an election ahead of schedule is always risky, and by all accounts many of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s royalist backers are not quite convinced that he’s done the right thing. It’s not entirely another matter that they believe Thailand would be better off with an extended spell without even scheduled polls — and in their extreme views they frame the political crisis that’s settled over the country these past few years. Ever since Thaksin Shinawatra was removed as PM in a military coup in 2006, the tussle between his supporters and their opponents has acquired geographic and class dimensions. It’s a measure of the severity of the crisis that it’s still far from clear whether the general election — likely to be held by early July — will resolve this rupture in Thai society.
Vejjajiva came to power in 2008 after extended sit-ins in Bangkok by royalist supporters, believed to be backed by the Bangkok elite and the military, and called the Yellow Shirts because of their identifying gear, resulted in the removal from office of Thaksin proteges. (Thaksin, mired in corruption cases, has lived outside Thailand since the coup.) Last year, Thaksin supporters — Red Shirts — took over Bangkok’s streets demanding an election. They are mainly drawn from the north and rural areas, and were won over by his healthcare and credit programmes. In protests like last year’s, which disrupted normal life in Bangkok and provoked an armed crackdown, they argue the majority their leaders get at election-time is blunted by manoeuvres, believed to be with the assent of the military and the palace.
Dated - 07/05/2011
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