SriLankan gets a breather

The Emirates managed national carrier SriLankan Airlines on Friday managed to get some breathing space over a stormy showdown with its pilots union, when the Commissioner General of Labour summoned a meeting to resolve the dispute giving time till November 8 to the company to sort out its dispute over accommodation for its crew on overseas stays.

Earlier the Pilots’ Guild gave one month’s notice to SriLankan of its decision to take trade union action from October 25 to correct alleged violations of its collective agreement by the Emirates management. At the meeting held at the Labour Ministry, the SriLankan management was represented by its Head of Human Resources. Pradeepa Dahanayake, A-340 Chief Pilot Capt. N. Nadarajah, A-330 Chief Pilot Capt. Druvi Perera and Manager, Human Resources Ali Kamil. The Pilots’ Guild was represented by its President Capt. Sujith Jayasekera and Vice President Capt. Lalith Wijetunga.

Kanishka Weerasinghe, who represented the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon at the talks refused to divulge any details on grounds he was not authorized by his client SriLankan to make any revelations. All attempts made to get a comment from the national carrier too failed as we were informed that only its Corporate Affairs Manager Chandana de Silva was authorized to speak on behalf of the airline, but his secretary said he too would not be available till Monday.

SriLankan Pilots’ Guild sources said they agreed to postpone industrial action in deference to the firm stand taken by Labour Commissioner D.S. Edirisinghe that the company resolve the matter relating to crew accommodation by November 8, a day on which the airline had already decided to have further discussions on outstanding issues.

Pending the resolving of the accommodation issue, the airline had wanted the pilots to drop their recent decision to strictly adhere to ‘flying the roster’, whereby they do not volunteer to do any additional flying when exigencies occur and also not allow the company to dictate to Captains on their discretion to extend flying time as in times of technical delays. But the Guild had refused to budge from its stand blaming the airline for not retaining pilots.

The Guild charged that so far about 25 local pilots had left the airline, many in disgust since the Emirates management came to the helm of the national carrier.It had even complained to the Labour Commissioner how the airline had terminated the services of two veteran pilots with unblemished records after accepting their resignations. The two pilots - Capt. Jayantha Jeewandera and Capt. Vinod de Silva - had each flown for the airline more than 20 years.

In the cost cutting exercise, the airline has downgraded crew hotel accommodation in a number of cities served by the airline, including London, Paris, Bangkok and Frankfurt. The London move appears to have particularly irked the pilots as they have been shifted from the Holiday Inn to a much cheaper hotel in a bad neighborhood close to the Heathrow airport.

The Guild also charged that while the employees were being exploited in many ways, including withholding their 13th month’s pay during the last two years, the top rungs and their cronies were living it up in style. For example, it said when the carrier sponsors golf tournaments, horse races, and windsurfing events colossal sums are wasted in booking entire hotels for days with everything paid for on company account.