Change in salaries by Air India will be illegal

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Any unilateral change by Air India in the salaries of pilots would be illegal and has the potential to flare-up to a situation of "unprecedented magnitude", said the ICPA, one of the airline's pilot unions, on Monday.

In a letter to Air India Chairman and Managing Director, Rajiv Bansal, the ICPA said, "In the press conference by Honourable Minister Shri Hardeep Singh Puri dated 16th July 2020, you had stated 'we are in negotiation with the pilots', which is far from reality."

"It was not a negotiation, but the 'diktat' of the Ministry of Civil Aviation which was conveyed to us. We would also like to place on record that the so-called negotiation was 'not harmonious' in any aspect," the Indian Commercial Pilots' Association (ICPA) noted. Air India has proposed a 60 per cent salary cut for pilots amid the pandemic.

'Statement, memo self-contradictory'

A day after demanding reversal of AI's leave without pay move, TMC leader Derek O'Brien sought to push the point further and claimed the scheme was "not voluntary" and that the airline's internal memo and press statement were "self-contradictory". He put up AI's office memo of July 14 and press statement of July 17 on his Twitter handle and highlighted some parts of the documents that he claimed were "self-contradictory".

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