Eight Air India unions threaten strike from April 2, international flights could be hit

Negotiations over unpaid salaries between an Air India pilots' union and the airline’s management in Mumbai on Wednesday have failed.

This could affect international flights as these pilots were earlier with Air India, when international and domestic flights operated separately. The domestic unit earlier flew under the Indian Airlines brand.

Representatives from eight other unions are scheduled to meet with the aviation secretary and Air India management in New Delhi on Thursday.

The group of eight unions says that employees have not been paid for four months and on Wednesday wrote to the Prime Minister seeking his “urgent intervention” in releasing salaries to employees, failing which they will strike work beginning April 2.

The strike will likely affect Air India's international flights.

“We … appeal to you for your kind and urgent intervention to resolve the situation and appeal to you for justice,” the Joint Forum of Guilds/Unions/Associations of Air India said in a letter sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday.

The Forum includes the Indian Pilots Guild, Air India Aircraft Engineers Association, Air India Engineers Association, All India Service Engineers Association, Air India Employees Union, Air Corporation Employees Union, Air India Officers Union and Air India Cabin Crew Association, representing almost all classes of Air India’s 33,000 employees.

A majority of employees have expressed their inability to work from April 2 due to non-payment of salaries over several months, the Forum claimed.

“Due to non-payment of wages for an extended time period, the employees are unable to meet their financial commitments and family responsibilities,” the letter said, pointing out that a significant number of them came from “humble background and modest means”.

The letter also pointedly said that “unlike Air India, which can turn to the central government for funds, employees have no such option”.

“The respective employees and their families alone have to suffer the humiliation of loan defaults and ensuing stress,” it added.

Noting that employees have been working and enduring hardship for the past year, the letter claimed that they are “no longer able to bear this agony, which has been thrust upon them for no fault of theirs”.

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IPL 2012: Owners strike deal to sell Rajasthan Royals

Bangalore: The owners of the Rajasthan Royals have agreed to sell the majority of the IPL franchise to a Kolkata-based businessman for $200 million, ESPNcricinfo has learned. However, the deal still requires the approval of the BCCI. Should it go through, it would be the first sale of an IPL franchise in the league's five-year history.

Mannoj Jain, the founder and promoter of the Jain Group of Industries, has offered to buy 88.3% of the company from three of the four shareholders in the franchise - Tresco International (Suresh Chellaram and family), which owns a 44.2% stake, Emerging Media (Manoj Badale), which owns 32.4% and Blue Water Estate Ltd (Lachlan Murdoch), the eldest son of Rupert Murdoch, which owns 11.7% - according to a person familiar with the developments.

The deal values the Royals at $226.50 million, almost three and a half times more than the $67 million the owners paid for the franchise at the original auction in 2008. Raj Kundra and Shilpa Shetty, who bought an 11.7% stake for $15.4 million in 2009, will retain their share in the team. The deal with Jain raises the value of their holdings to $26.50 million, an increase of 72% over a three-year period. News of the deal was first reported by a leading business daily on March 20.

A top board official said that the BCCI was reluctant to give consent to the deal because there is a strong opinion that Lalit Modi, the former IPL commissioner who was suspended by the BCCI for irregularities during his tenure, might financially benefit from the sale. This is due to unsubstantiated allegations in the past around the possibility that Modi may have hidden stakes in the Royals' ownership. "We suspect if the deal is allowed to go through Modi can benefit financially and some in the BCCI at least do not want that to happen," the official told ESPNcricinfo.

According to the group's website, Jain has businesses in infrastructure, steel, power and real estate. The company made a profit of Rs 694.26 million after tax for the year ended 2009-10. Among their projects is the Kolkata Sports City, a sports township set on 250 acres in Rajarhat, which the company estimates will cost Rs 2.2 billion.

The Royals have had something of a chequered history in the IPL. Led by Shane Warne, the team won the inaugural tournament in 2008, surprising many in the process. Two years later the BCCI abruptly terminated the franchise from the league, along with the Kings XI Punjab, on charges of transgressing shareholding and ownership norms that threatened to "shake the very foundation of the tender process". However, the Royals fought their expulsion in the Bombay High Court and won, with the court ordering they be restored to the league with all their rights and privileges intact. The court also referred the case to arbitration, the proceedings of which are still on.

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