Click to play videoNew Delhi: Jet Airways pilots on Thursday said that they are ready to fly if the sacked pilots are reinstated. The striking Jet pilots and the airline management will meet the Chief Labour Commissioner SK Mukhopadhyay on Friday to sort out the imbroglio.
Jet Chairman Naresh Goyal also met Union Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge in New Delhi on Thursday.
The controversy has also kicked off the debate on whether the highly paid pilots are workmen and do they have a right to form unions?
Sources have told CNN-IBN that the Prime Minister's Office is strongly opposed to any attempt being made by pilots to form a union.
At the heart of this view is a contention whether pilots can be treated as workmen or not given the fact that technically, educationally and financially they are in a much higher bracket.
The Industrial Dispute Act 1947 defines workman as a person (including an apprentice) employed in any industry to do any manual, unskilled, skilled, technical, operational, clerical or supervisory work for hire or reward.
He should not be doing largely managerial or administrative work. If employed as a supervisor then he should not draw a salary over Rs 1,600 per month.
"It is absolutely legal. There is nothing wrong about it. We have an old act of 1926 known as Trade Unions Act under which they are legally authorised entity to form a union," says a lawyer, Pradeep Sancheti.
However, within the political fraternity there are many sympathisers for the pilots' cause.
From the Bharatiya Janata Party to the Congress, the pilots' cause is a valid one for many leaders
"Air India has a pilots' union. There is not much of a difference between the salaries of the pilots of the two airlines. So there is no such thing that they cannot form an union," says Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam.
Similar views are echoed by Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge.
"In this country Constitution does not prohibit anybody from forming union, society, association, trust or institution. Everybody can form one," says Kharge.
But the final word now will be pronounced by the Supreme Court where the pilots have already gone to ensure that their attempts to form a union don't run into legal hassles.
(With inputs from Prarthana Gehlot)
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