Jet lay-offs: U-turn prompted by political pressure

Political pressures were brought to bear on Jet Airways Chief Naresh Goyal to reinstate employees, who were given pink slips on Wednesday morning.

Part of the drama took place in Delhi and meetings were held in Mumbai to ensure the employees were not given marching orders. In Maharashtra, it was the result of competitive politics between the Shiv Sena boss, Uddhav Thackeray, and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief — Raj, Uddhav’s cousin.

Top sources told Business Standard that earlier this week, Raj and Naresh Goyal had a highly public meeting and the two promised to meet again “in two or three days” on the issue of retrenchments. The expectation was that some arrangement to reinstate at least some of the employees could be reached.

Immediately after that, Goyal reportedly got a call from Uddhav Thackeray, warning him about the consequences of meeting Raj again.

Meanwhile in Delhi, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel refused to comment on the incident, merely saying: “I spoke to Jet Airways and said what I had to”.

Government sources conceded that the employees had not been sacked on a whim but because the airline industry, faced with a crisis, had no other recourse but to thin the workforce. While ruling out any possibility of a bailout package, these sources said what could be discussed is the issue of Air Turbine Fuel (ATF) “on which the airline industry has a genuine grievance”.

The Congress yesterday and today came out strongly against the sacking of workers and broadly endorsed what Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes had said following industrial unrest in Greater Noida — that hire and fire was simply not acceptable. “We have an election hanging over our head. The government can do anything but it cannot allow industry to sack people like this” a Congress leader said.