NEW DELHI: The Air India Express Employees Union (AIXEU) has claimed that the airline has issued charge sheets to 200 cabin crew members for reporting sick in May, a move the union called “unfair labor practice”.
The charge sheets were issued on June 5, with a 72-hour response deadline.
In May, around 200 cabin crew members went on strike to protest alleged mismanagement, leading to the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
The airline terminated the services of 25 crew members and warned others to return to work or face similar consequences. The strike ended after a conciliation meeting between crew representatives and
management at the Office of the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) in Delhi on May 9.
In a letter to Air India Express chief Aloke Singh, AIXEU president K K Vijayakumar stated, “The charge-sheet was issued by the Chief of HR to many of the cabin crew members regarding their sick reports. It is very unfortunate and constitutes unfair labour practice to reopen the case and issue charge-sheets for matters that have already been settled through conciliation.”
The union urged the management to refrain from reopening settled issues, warning that such actions could harm the company and its passengers.
They emphasized that the issue was amicably resolved during the May 9 meeting and that pursuing punitive action would only worsen industrial relations.
The union also pointed out that during the May 28 hearing before the CLC, it was clearly stated that no punitive action would be taken against employees in this regard. Furthermore, the union claimed that numerous flight cancellations occurred due to data loss from newly introduced software, which was misrepresented as the fault of the cabin crew employees.