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NEW DELHI : Employees of India's national carrier Air India staged a nationwide two-hour strike on Friday to protest what they said was management's failure to pay salaries on time.
The walkout was called by the airline's two largest unions, despite a warning from company executives that they would deduct wages from employees who participated in any stoppage.
Last month the management of the struggling state-run airline -- which merged with government-run domestic carrier Indian Airlines last year -- sent a notice to its employees saying it would defer 73 million dollars in June wages until July 15.
But the carrier later said it would pay salaries to lower-ranked employees by Friday.
"We are staging a walkout and demonstration for two hours as the management has failed to honour its commitment given to the unions to pay our June salaries by today," George Abraham, general secretary of the Aviation Industry Employees' Guild told the Press Trust of India
Air India spokesman Jitendra Bhargava would not comment on whether or not the employees had been paid, but told AFP: "Once employees go on agitation, we can't be seen paying them."
"They should have logically waited until the 3rd, which was the committed date, rather than having announced agitation on the 2nd."
Employees staged demonstrations and shouted slogans outside company offices in the capital New Delhi and Mumbai, but all flights were reported to be operating normally.
Last month the airline also asked its top managers to forgo one month's salary as part of efforts to survive the crisis.
A combination of high fuel prices, fewer passengers and the global financial meltdown have left Air India with an estimated 800 million dollars in losses for the past year and debt of four billion dollars, according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation.
- AFP /ls
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