India Insight

The distraught foreign national and her wheelchair-bound mother on TV is a compelling argument against the Jet Airways pilots’ strike which has dragged on for four days.

The stand-off between the pilots and the airline management over the sacking of four pilots has forced the airline to cancel hundreds of flights, affecting at least 14,000 passengers since Tuesday.

The public inconvenience caused by such strikes is so pressing that the cause of the strike almost always seems petty.

But striking employees are not always to blame over fragile labour relations.

There have been years when man-days lost due to lockouts have surpassed those caused by employee strikes.

In the current strike, the management as well as the pilots’ union have been pointing fingers.

On Wednesday, the High Court had issued a contempt notice to the pilots for going on ‘mass leave’.

A day later, the chief labour commissioner said that it was illegal to dismiss the pilots while conciliation proceedings were still on.

So who is responsible for this chain of events?