The document discusses the merger crisis at Air India caused by rivalry between unions representing pilots from the two pre-merger airlines. The government and unions took minimal steps to resolve conflicts, focusing more on winning arguments than mutual agreement. This fuelled strikes and unhealthy employer-employee relationships. A long-term solution requires analyzing problems on both sides, establishing a fair pay scale, and satisfying employees to improve company performance and end disputes.
2. The Role of Unions and Government in
solving the rivalry
The Air India merger has resulted in complete flunk
and failure of the aviation services. The main reason for
this issue is the lack of integrity accompanied with
psychological superiority and inferiority of the unions. To
be clear and precise, the role of unions is to take care of
the welfare of the employees. But in this case it so
happened where the government worked in such a way
where they could just conduct meetings, to win in their
argument, this was evident form the fact that the unions
kept on pressing up their needs with no idea to come to a
mutual agreement. When they didn’t get their work done,
the IPG unions violated their agreement and cancelled the
flights that were supposed to be flying with the ICPA pilots.
The government too added their role to trigger the strike
more by completely ignoring the strike of IPG. This way
the union grew fiercer when the ICPA pilots were given
immediate answers and their needs are fulfilled while they
were left as such. This way the 2012 strike was
continuously fueling on by both unions and the
government and it went on for days together.
Solving the strike of 2012:
3. The role of unions in sorting out the issue happened
when they no longer can sustain the issue and they gave
up. Despite all these misunderstandings and emotional
inferiorities, the IPG union still called on for a meeting with
the Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh, but to their bad time
even that turned out to be a flunk when the minister gave
words only to a few people and didn’t bother to give them
exact remedies and solutions. Disheartened by this, the
IPG members started the hunger strike which went on until
its members started reporting ill. Even after consecutive
failures and no attention, in a view to solve the issue and
find a solution, the IPG members appealed to the prime
minister as well as the UPA chairperson. It only happened
when on the seventh week, that the six other unions,
though didn’t popularize much consisting of cabin crew
personal, engineers and commercial staff took initiative to
write a letter to Ajit Singh, requesting him to end the strike.
Finally when nothing worked out, it was the IPG pilots who
gave up and spoke up that they’ve started the procedures
to continue their work and report to their workplace. They
gave in all their demands and settled down to work. Even
then the other unions and the management had only head
weights and didn’t bother to make conditions better for
them. The management was still so confident in their
words. They still followed their ‘work first then pay’ policy.
4. After all these, the government intervened and Delhi high
court directed the Air India management and the striking
management to settle the issue amicably by signing
affidavits. So it happened that all the pilots signed
affidavits and along with this they are also asked to appear
before the conciliation officer. When they appeared before
the conciliation officer, Air India management took one
side and the pilots on strike took the other. While this was
going on, there were still no headway and both the parties
stood on their own points without any signs for
compromising.
The IPG union demanded to remove all the official
complaints lodged against them along with a few pay
parity demands and fulfill their pending salaries and
allowances. With Air India resisting them, the demands
were reduced from initial 14 to final 2. But even then, the
management denied accepting them. Air India
management still was not satisfying the pilots, it formed a
committee that restored the pilots but didn’t accept any of
their demands. This literally got the pilots more agitating
but still they managed to work for the company. So on the
whole, the issue was solved but the disputes were not yet
resolved. They continued to have grievances and cold
wars but didn’t show them out officially.
Solving the strike of 2011:
5. The solution given to this strike fueled the emotions of
the IPG union more; it also created a wrong impact in the
minds of the unions. When the ICPA strike was called out,
the management set in all the disputes and accepted the
demands of the workers within 10days of their strike. So
by this the unions came to an idea that, if they needed
something they can revolt and it would be satisfied. This
ideology became a breaking point in the economic sectors
and later brought up a promising point of getting work
done if revolted.
But during the strike of 2012, this was not the case
and the management didn’t take any steps in confronting
but they did speak out that the striking union pilots were
no longer expected to return to work. This word of civil
aviation minister Ajit Singh created an idea of neglect
among the pilots and they developed an inferiority
complex. So by this even after the merger there were pay
parity between the erstwhile AI and IA employees and
even their promotion levels were different. This created a
unhealthy employer relationships and no positive vibes
across the workplace resulting in no proper growth levels
and developments within the company and this also
resulted in continued internal disputes affecting both the
workers as well as the management.
Hence summarizing the role of unions and
governments in avoiding and resolving the conflict, both
6. the unions and government took minimal steps in settling
the situation, but neither bothered in settling the disputes.
This is standing as the reason for all the cold wars that are
happening since then. May if be the government or the
unions intervene the situation right now things may get
alright or the situations may improve. This might by any
chance improve the interpersonal relationships between
the employees and things may turn out well. If it works
well, it may even turn back the past glory of Air India, but
all these takes the disputes to be solved.
Solution for Air India Merger Crisis
To come up with solutions, the first step to do is
to analyze what the problems are and where it lies.
Analysing it in such a way, the main problem can be
categorized into two broad categories: The problem of the
employees and then the problem of the management
itself. Considering this case study the only thing that is
focused upon was the dispute. Only the external conflicts
how it happened and why it happened. It doesn’t
showcase any of the sides; about the mentality of the
unions or of the management. But it depicts clearly the
reasoning of why everything went on that way i.e, the
official reasoning. So I’ll start with complete analysis of the
given case study.
7. Analysing the case, the problems which they faced
are a lot more. Getting on to the point of employees, they
suffered improper payments, partiality in promotions, delay
in appraisals which at times meant no appraisals and
salary dates not so soon, Inferiority complexes,
differences in dealing with unions, no proper union, lack of
integrity, neglected during strike and so on. So this gave
them a total discomfort and lack of resources to
concentrate on their personal life. This made them go on
fights abruptly despite their health conditions.
Taking the side of the Air India management, when
analysed we could find out that the company was not in a
very good condition to solve the problems of the
employees. Considering human physiology, ancient
scholars say “we can feed others only when we are fed
enough”. This means, only when the latter is satisfied and
is profited he gives others the hike. But in case of Air India
the company itself ran on a constant loss and is suffering
even after numerous attempts. As they thought it may
work out well if merged, they took some daring steps to
join hands. But then the real story began when they found
out it was the worse merging ever. They were totally upset
when they found out the demands of the employees have
raised when they were in total draught. This ignited the
rage of the employees which later resulted in ignoring
them totally. This also gives reason to why the 2011 strike
8. was answered immediately and the 2012 strike was called
off. It all depends on the financial state of the company
and more than that the decision making person of that
time. During the former strike the person in charge
answered the call of the employees in a positive way and
in 2012 it happened the other way.
When analysing the crisis it should be taken care that
both the parties are getting justice. Despite all these
problems faced both the parties, the main issue of this
crisis points hand to the human resource committee. In
spite of all the prevailing financial and economic issues,
this Air India crisis is totally a human error. The result of
what would happen when the human resource is not
utilized properly. This is the result of what would happen
when the management neglected the uniqueness of the
human resource and abused them. The first that should be
done to increase profit and sustainability of any company
lies in better management and best satisfaction of the
employees. The wealth of the company lies in
contentment of the employees. The main reason why Air
India flunked was the discontentment of the employees
and their lack of performance. This eventually resulted in
loss for both: the employees as well as the company. So
in order to find a solution for this, the only thing to be done
is to make the employees contented.
9. That way it might solve the issue with the actions that
were planned previously. The India’s federal aviation
ministry had proposed a uniform pay scale for all pilots at
Air India irrespective of where they worked previously.
Under this proposal, the committee that was formed was
directed to investigate the merger issue with concerns to
both the parties and solve the issue mutually. By this there
won’t be any rivalries with both the management as well
as the workers. This way there will be equal pay and
consistent working hours and equal appraisal for both the
employee categories, the IPG as well as the ICPA . With
regard with civil aviation minister Ajit Singh, he states to
have a level mapping exercise so that the employees will
be ranked according to their level of talent and
capabilities. By following this, there will be equal pay
scales and a fair chance will be given to pilots of both the
airlines in terms of career progression. The government
intended that when all these actions were taken, the strike
would come to an end by the time all these policies were
imposed. But due to some issues may be of management
or the unions or may be a third party, none of these
actually happened. The existence of the use of Air India
pilots over Indian Airlines pilots for Boeing 787 aircraft,
which are due to join the fleet earlier also added to the far
cost and added Rs.2.5 billion to the lost revenue.
10. So as a final solution, it’s still not late. The
management can still take steps to solve the riot and
establish peace and harmony within the company. Once
this is established they can be guaranteed that the
company no more runs of loss and their position starts
coming up gradually. In a final statement, it all starts with
satisfying the workers. Human resource stays as the only
developing resource of the company and the success of
any organization lies in utilizing it well.
