How Yechury broke the Indian deadlock

On the sidelines of the high political drama on the elusive consensus among the UPA constituents on the presidential candidate, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury quietly managed to break the three-day strike by the employees of Indian. The strike badly hit air services.

Sources said Yechury spoke to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh directly. Yechury met Singh while he accompanied CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat and other Left leaders for a meeting with the UPA leaders this morning.

"Things started moving by mid-day and the deal between the employee union and the civil aviation authorities was clinched by 3.30 pm,'' said a senior leader of the Centre of Indian trade Union (CITU), the labour wing of the CPI(M).

The Air Corporation Employees Union, the biggest of the seven striking unions spearheading the strike, is an affiliate of the CITU.

Sources said the prime minister directly spoke to Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, who had earlier taken a tough stand against the striking employees and sacked some of the leaders.

Yechury, the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on surface transport, reportedly conveyed to the prime minister that the workers were feeling betrayed by the civil aviation management for backtracking from an agreement on wage revision and promotion.

The Left unions are blaming Patel for adamant stand against the genuine demands of the workers. The CPI(M) leaders, sources said, were eager to end the strike due to adverse public opinion.

The CITU leaders said within an hour of the Left leader's meeting the prime minister, the civil aviation authorities sent the chief central labour commissioner to meet the striking workers at Chennai. The deal was clinched within two hours.

The government accepted the workers' demand for paying wage arrears in one to one-and-a-half years and agreed to an employee promotion plan, Civil Aviation Secretary Ashok Chawla said in New Delhi.

"The government has agreed to our demand of paying arrears in the next 18 months and to our demands for time-bound promotions to the employees of Indian Airlines," Shetty said . The government also agreed to tack back all the sacked employees, he said.