PIA workers reiterate threat to halt flight operations

KARACHI: Representatives of PIA employees announced on Sunday they would continue their strike and reiterated their threat to bring all flight operations to a halt from Tuesday (Feb 2) because of what they called the government’s refusal to accept their main demand of calling off the organisation’s privatisation plan.

Announcing the decision at the PIA head office, the chief of Joint Action Committee of PIA Employees (JACPIAE), Sohail Baloch, said the government had not accepted the workers’ demand of scrapping the privatisation plan.

He said that if the government did not call off the plan by Monday all flight operations would be halted from the following day.

He claimed that the employees were united on the issue and were ready to render sacrifices to protect the national flag carrier.

He said that Federal Aviation Secretary Irfan Illahi had called the JACPIAE leaders on Sunday and informed them that the privatisation plan had been shelved for six months and, therefore, protesting employees should end their protest. But he also told the employees’ representatives that he could not guarantee that the airline would not be privatised after six months.

Mr Baloch said that because of the government’s response, the employees had decided to continue their protest till the acceptance of their demand.

Meanwhile, the PIA management has asked the employees to call off their protest and resume duty and said that because of workers’ strike for six days the organisation had incurred a loss of Rs600 million.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2016

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Comments (7) Closed

Mahmood

Feb 01, 2016 07:25am

I recall in 1982 in the U.S. Air Traffic Controllers had gone on strike all over the country, and flights were drastically reduced and disrupted travels of millions of people within the U.S and overseas. President Ronald Reagan took swift action and fired the striking workers, and deregulated the Airline industry in the U.S. paving the way for fair competition, open skies and mergers in the industry. PIA is not even comparable to a single U.S. Airline in terms of size, sophistication and service level, and yet these workers have the audacity to hold the country of 180 million hostage to their whims and desires!?? I would take emergency measures, shut down the company for a few weeks or months, reorganize it and hire new staff to revamp the ailing company. There is no reason for the government to allow this black mail to go on!

Recommend 0

flipflop

Feb 01, 2016 08:08am

So if you all dont want it to be privatised then why not start working and fulfill the duties that everyone was hired for. If the management is so much concerned about the losses then they should stop stealing the money and perhaps work in the interest of the company and its stakeholders. Be more transparent with the operations, finances, and hiring . We are nothing but savages. We elect the devils every single time and then cry foul when things get out of hands. The truth is we are not truthful to ourselves, others, and to the country. People we elect are merely our reflection so stop blaming the government, the US and other countries and start improving yourself. Start from your house, change the mindset of your family, then friends and so on. PIA once known to be in the top 10 airlines is now at the bottom. The slogan "great people to fly with" is no more fitting for this airline. I would love to see this Airline and this country to be restored back to its glory. We are the change !

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Tariq

Feb 01, 2016 08:41am

Management should remove all the striking employees who were employed by political alliances or otherwise. The airline has been underperforming for couple of decades. It is very difficult to believe that PIA help started Singapore Airlines at its early days. The airline should be brought back past glory. Thanks

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Disgusted

Feb 01, 2016 09:03am

If the employees were genuinely concerned about the airline their source of income they would stop striking and present a plan that would cut the losses and make it profitable. They would save their jobs and the national carrier. If anyone of them had business sense, ask them how long would they keep running it with such huge losses. They don't need to strike. Simply keep working as they have been and believe me no one in his right mind would buy it ever. So then why strike when the union can achieve its objective without striking. What a sorry lot, both the government and the employee union and representatives. They deserve each other.

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Muhammad Tahir Jamali

Feb 01, 2016 11:24am

PIA striking workers are doing all this to defame the National Airline and obeying some one orders to close and flourish private airlines ( Of Someone). Nothing else. All workers belong to Big Political Party.

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Farouk Salehjee.

Feb 01, 2016 06:35pm

There is really no soluton but to privatize PIA I had in the past mentioned that things may change for better but going on Strike when the company is bleeding so bad clearly indicates the kind of employees working in PIA and giving bad name to other dedicated, hard working employees of PIA I am personally not in the favor of Gulf Airlines ( EK/QR or EY ) buying off PIA as it is our National Carrier but suggest to privatize it as soon as possible. There are lot of well to do capable business people in Pakistan and they can surely turn around PIA effectively by Accountability, Reducing number of employees per Aircraft, Eliminating unwanted employees who are actually very unproductive and this should not take time as owners of PIA will be looking for results from day one. Goverment should support by offering a realistic tax bracket for PIA. Lets not waste time any further.

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Abbassin

Feb 01, 2016 11:58pm

@Mahmood / If Air traffic controllers-a highly skilled and difficult job can be fired, I do not see any reason why PIA employees cannot be fired, considering that a vast majority of them are there only because of their political affiliation, and not because of their clerical work. The difference though is that we do not have a Ronald Reagan in Pakistan. I say fire all the excess political baggage, sell the Airline to private investors, and let them rehire the best and the brightest, and bring back the old glory of PIA, when it was one of the best airlines of the world.

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