Airport contract workers still wait for regular jobs

October 24: Almost a year after the Supreme Court ordered the Airports Authority of India to absorb contract labour employed in its premises as regular employees, 1000 such workers continue to remain unemployed as AAI is still completing the formalities.

According to airport officials, most of the former contract employees originally employed as sweepers and cleaners have submitted affidavits as called for by the AAI in order to verify their identity. “Since many of them ceased to be employees of AAI since 1983 we have to make meticulous efforts to establish their identity and seniority of service,” said a senior airport official. However, the employees who are unaware of the workings of the bureaucracy continue to maintain a vigil outside the offices of the airport manager in the hope that they may be asked to resume duty.

Nearly 50 of them, mostly women, affiliated to the trade union, Kamgar Utkarsha Sabha religiously mark their presence every day between 9 am and 5 pm. Incidentally over 900 contract workers represented by the Airport Contract Workers Union have been legally restrained from assembling outside the airport. This group however holds periodic demonstrations outside the airport.