The workers had demanded monthly dearness allowance and a month’s extra salary as festival allowance. The workers had claimed that they were denied extra salary and dearness allowance even when Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) entered into an agreement on July 11 this year to that effect. The CAAN, in turn, defended its position by saying that since the employees are hired by the service providers it is the contractors who must address the demands of the employees and not the government agency.
This is a great relief for the country, especially because the employees’ strike could have a serious impact on the functioning of the aviation sector. The agitation directly affected the TIA, air cargo division, (CAAN) office, the domestic terminal on Monday. TIA is one such place where halt of basic services could have far-reaching consequences for the country. A day’s strike at the country’s international terminal would portray Nepal in a bad light in the eyes of the international travelers.
Such a strike that cripples proper functioning of the aviation sector is simply unacceptable. As it is, in this day and age of modernization and technological advancement, Nepal can hold no pride in having a reasonably standard international airport. Inability to provide even the bare minimum facilities like cleaning for more than a day would have been disastrous. There are some 540 workers, including cleaners, trolley collectors and drivers among others, working at various aviation offices in the Valley.
It is good that a problem has been aborted, thanks to the sensibility of the authorities. But CAAN and the contractors must ensure that such a situation does not arise in the future. Tuesday’s agreement has also shown that the employees’ agitation was not totally unjustifiable. After all the demands of Rs 1200 per month and some festival allowance are not unreasonable and is well within the affordability of the management.
Negligence and exploitative attitude on the part of the authorities can sometimes prove fatal. However, it must be stated that collective bargaining strategies that are easily resorted to by our workers and trade unions in the country must be discarded at once. The trade unions must learn lessons from Surya Nepal episode and draw their own limits.
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