Barely a fortnight after the Jet Airways pilots’ wildcat strike was called off, the regional labour commissioner has issued a second show-cause notice to the newly formed pilots’ union National Aviators’ Guild (NAG), asking why its registration should not be cancelled on grounds of fraud or mistake. The notice says that the NAG’s reply to its first show-cause

notice is not satisfactory and it does not explain the various discrepancies and mistakes pointed out by the regional labour commissioner.

The latest show-cause notice alleges that the deputy registrar of the trade union, who had granted the registration “was somehow persuaded to issue the registration certificate” within a day of receiving the application for the registration of the union “without complying with the requirements of the Act/Rules and without complying with the mandatory provisions of Section 8 of the Act.” The Jet management had insisted that the union be disbanded during its negotiations with the protesting pilots, after they went on an en masse sick leave in early September.

The strike, which crippled the airlines’ operations, lasted for five days after the management agreed to reinstate unconditionally the two sacked pilots, Capt Balaraman and Capt Sam Thomas.

In its second show-cause notice issued on Septmeber 5, the Registrar of Trade Union said,“This shows undue and unseemly haste whereby the application of your union was taken up out of turn and not only proceeded with but was granted on the very date registration in violation of section 8 of the Act, even though some queries and objections were not complied with at the time of granting registration”. It also said that the due process to ratify the name change of union from Indian National Aviatiors’ Guild to NAG was not carried out and “in a hurry the registration was granted by mistake”.

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