Something About The Law

The Jet- Airways stand off with its pilots seems to be a very interesting case to study. The history of this situation is that  the airline pilots do not have any union and being contract employees can be shown the door anytime. The current financial crisis may the lives of the younger pilots even tougher with a whole lot of them being laid off.

So when the National Aviators Guild was formed, the Jet Airways management sacked two of its pilots for playing a role in the formation of the Union. Thus, the strike was announced. Jet rushed to the Bombay High Court that ruled the strike to be illegal and prohibited the Union from going on strike by virtue of Sections 22 and 23 of the Industrial Disputes Act. Further, since the matter was pending before the Labour Commissioner, it was asked that the dispute be resolved via that medium as soon as possible.

The Union still went ahead with the strike by taking mass sick/ casual leave as a result of which a large number of people were inconvenienced by virtue of flight cancellations and unavailability in other flights. The NAG at the same time filed petitions in the Madras High Court against Jet Airways on the hiring of expats for the job.

This situation is a revisit of the classic days of socialism where big ole Corporates hated that their employees form unions and took actions against them. I was reading Clarence Darrow on this and am now amused by the strong semblance of his work to modern day times. Those in power always seem to want to bend the law to their advantage and take action against those for whose protection the law is meant. In the case of Jet- Airways, this is possibly being done in the following ways;

1) Till a little earlier, the airline had refused to declare itself an industry under the Industrial Disputes Act(though the SC a few years ago ruled otherwise in the case of Air India). Now they have used it to their advantage and stated that the strike by the pilots is illegal and got an ex parte order from the Bombay High Court restraining the NAG from striking.

2) It has been said that the Centre is planning to invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) on the situation so as to compel the pilots to fly or else face criminal prosecution. The law is to be in an extremely rare situation.

3) The Centre and the DGCA are also planning to move and Amendment to the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 so as to remove Airline pilots from the definition of workmen from the Act. This way, they can never legally form unions and go on strikes. The apparent rationale being that since they get paid a lot, the benefits of the ID Act should not avail them.

Like I said earlier, I was amused to look at the various ways Jet (the big guys) were planning to use the law to their advantage. The right to form a Union is the essence of any socialist state (including India) and apart from the Constitution, it has also been codified in the Trade Union Act, 1926. The right to form an union has never been in dispute as such. In 1995, the Supreme Court in Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam v Commissioner of Labour (1995) Supp 3 SSC 653 stated that any group of employees has the right to form an union under the Trade Union Act, the only rider being that it has to be registered. The crucial point is the it uses the word ‘employee’ rather than ‘workmen’ and this rebuts the contention of Jet that they cannot form a Union because they are not workmen under the ID Act.

Thankfully, the standoff has ended and the Jet pilots have decided to start flying with immediate effect. The negotiations ended with the formation of a grievance committee consisting of both pilots and administration members to hear such cases.

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