Shiv Sena-affiliated BKS seeks salaries for Jet staff

The Bharatiya Kamgar Sena (BKS), the trade union wing of Shiv Sena, met Jet CEO Vinay Dube on Monday and urged the airline to find ways to pay the salaries due to its employees.

"We requested the CEO to find ways for salary payment and protect jobs of employees," said Santosh Chalke, General Secretary of BKS.

Chalke claimed to have about 5,000 Jet Airways employees as BKS members.

Two days back, a BJP Lok Sabha candidate from West Bengal, Samik Bhattacharya, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his direction to financial institutions for factoring the humanitarian dimension when coming to a decision.

Speaking to IANS from Mumbai over phone, BKS' Chalke said that the airline CEO had expressed his inability to do anything about salary payment given the financial crisis.

"He (CEO) said that only SBI and other lenders can find a solution to the problem," Chalke said.

Jet Airways last Wednesday suspended its operations indefinitely, putting a question mark over the fate of over 20,000 employees.

The airline's revival now depends on successful stake sale initiated by the lenders led by SBI.

In an official statement, the airline lenders led by SBI has said that they are "reasonably hopeful" that the stake sale process would succeed and determine fair value of the enterprise.

As per industry sources, private equity firms TPG Capital, Indigo Partners and the NIIF and Etihad Airways are in the race to buy a stake in the grounded carrier.

--IANS

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