India's top aircraft repair & maintenance company to hold meeting on pending salaries

State-owned AIESL's permanent engineers and company representatives will meet again on July 24 to discuss pending salary issues after their conciliation meeting convened by the labour department on Monday ended in a deadlock, according to a source.

The background

A joint forum of various unions and associations representing the company's permanent engineers has flagged concerns about long-pending revised salary payments. Last month, it had threatened to go on strike from May 24 but it was deferred.

The forum represents around 1,700 staff of AIESL that provides engineering services to mainly Air India as well as a few other airlines. It has aircraft maintenance engineers, service engineers and allied cadre unions of permanent employees of erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines, who were transferred to AIESL.

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The issues

Representatives of AIESL and unions attended the meeting held in the national capital on Monday that was convened by the Chief Labour Commissioner (CLC) under the ongoing conciliation proceedings.

However, the differences persisted and the next meeting will be held on July 24, the source told PTI.

The conciliation officer has asked the company's management to hold discussions with the union representatives and submit a status report on the issues to the CLC on or before the next conciliation meeting, as per the source.

Further, the source said a decision on strike will be taken after the next meeting on July 24.

The Aviation Industry Employees' Guild, All India Service Engineers' Association, Air Corporation Employees' Union, and Indian Aircraft Technicians' Associations inked a wage revision agreement in January this year.

In May, the forum said the the agreement was signed after more than 15 years with the aim of ending several litigations, discrimination of pay implementation and services conditions, among other issues.

While flagging that the agreement was yet to be implemented, the forum also mentioned the company's recent commitment to provide arrears to contractual employees.

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The company

AIESL has more than 5,000 staff.

In April, the union representing the company's Fixed Term Employment (FTE) staff had called for a strike on April 23 and the same was withdrawn later after reaching a settlement regarding their grievances, including on salary revision and promotion.

AIESL, which provides base and line maintenance as well as overhaul of landing gear, among other services, is under the AI Assets Holding Ltd after the disinvestment of Air India in 2022.

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