Thursday, September 10, 2009

Support striking Jet employees








This blog is in support of Jet's striking employees. Please read the following and forward this content to express your support.


September 8, 2009:
A large number of Jet Airways' pilots go on mass sick leave to protest the sacking of four pilots on the grounds that they formed a new labour union called 'National Aviation Guild'.
Remember this well.



September 9, 2009:



"They are behaving like terrorists. They cannot hold the country, the passengers and the airline hostage." - Naresh Goyal, chairman Jet Airways, on employees who have gone on mass sick leave.



Why is this important?
Earlier we have heard names of often little known places - Nandigram, Singur, Kalinganagar, Gurgaon, Dantewada - flashing on our televisions and splashed on our papers. Behind all of them there was one common word 'development'.


In the name of development, the state was becoming the henchman of corporates and killing at their bidding. In many of these places whoever opposed the corporates were termed 'naxalites'.


Whoever opposes the corporates or the state has to be removed from mainstream social consciousness by attaching to them words such as 'terrorists' and 'naxalites' and later physically.


Naresh Goyal has gone ahead and done away with the subtleities of the past, there is no home minister's press conference announcing that the striking Jet employees have links with subversive elements. Instead Goyal has declared his own employees as terrorists.
According to Goyal, they are not only holding the airline hostage but the country as well. Heh, when has a country been held hostage by an airline strike? Haven't we seen state strikes or national strikes? Even those sometimes fail to 'cripple' the country.
The brilliance of Goyal's statement is in nicely sewing up the corporation and state into one coherent unit. The message is clear opposing one is like opposing the other. Goyal also announced that he would "act according to the law of the land". So the message is the corporate is behaving itself, the employees are the errant ones they better fall into line.
But why should you support the Jet pilots' strike?
Maybe your flight was cancelled, maybe someone you know had a flight cancelled. But does that mean the employees don't have a right to strike and express their views strongly?
Why should a person be termed a 'terrorist' for withholding his/her work? It is afterall either under the provisions of the 'contract' between Jet and the employee that they are taking leave? And isn't the contract an instrument of the 'law of this land'?
Withholding work is not a crime, if it is done under terms of the 'contract' or at a loss of pay. If one is punished for that then it simply amounts to slavery. Only slaves are not allowed to withhold their work.
If this is let to pass and the corporates can act harshly upon those who withhold work, they a time shall come when it may happen to you.
So please forwad and express your support.


Atleast let people know what the issue is.


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