human resource management ethics

A DECISION THAT WENT SOUR

Airline employee’s layoff grounds management

In mid-October 2008, in the middle of the festival season in India, the employees of jet airways were in for a rude surprise. The employees, 1900 in all, including 800 permanent employees with more than decade’s service in the organization, were given notices of their retrenchment. Some were informed through SMS only.

       The $6 billion aviation industry in India suffered a total loss of $2 billion till march 2009. Jet airways and kingfisher airlines stuck a strategic alliance to counter the slowdown in the aviation industry, which caused them a loss of Rs.10 crore daily. Putting plans of expansion on hold and agreeing to a code – sharing alliance with king fisher, jet airways expected to break even in 2010. The layoff decision was a part of this business plan.

   Mumbai became the epicentre of the employee action: hundreds of employees of jet airways, including pilots, the cabin crew, and grounds staff came out openly and agitated. They enlisted the sympathy and support of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a rightist political party, and pleaded with its leader, raj Thackery, to support their causes and several of them claimed that they were only breadwinners in their family and that they would be forced into starvation.

When the mind approached one of the jet airway’s executive directors, he apparently gave the management’s decision quite dispassionately. He said that the layoff was not unusual, but agreed that it was a bit sudden. The company had to take the decision to save itself.

MNS decided to ground jet airways in Maharashtra. Naresh Goyal, the chairman of jet airways, reacted immediately. He said that his management had taken a bad decision that was beyond the management. Everyone would be reinstated and they could celebrate their festival season without further worries. He went on to say that he was the father of his company and not bear to see tears in the eyes of his large family.