Indian airport workers to discuss PM's appeal to end strike
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-04 15:35

Leaders of striking airport workers were meeting Saturday to consider an appeal by the Indian prime minister to return to work, after he assured them that they would not lose their jobs despite government plans to privatize the country's two largest airports, officials said.

The four-day strike by thousands of mostly cleaners and administrators has had little impact on flights, but it has forced airports to run on emergency electricity generators and left them without water and littered with garbage.

Meanwhile, workers protesting inside New Delhi airport said police forcibly evicted them from the terminal in the middle of the night, Press Trust of India news agency reported.

"It is highly condemnable that the police acted in the dead of night against the employees who were holding a peaceful protest," PTI quoted M. K. Ghoshal, a union leader at the Airport Authority of India, as saying.

Ghoshal wasn't immediately available for comment. The New Delhi High court on Thursday barred protest demonstrations from being held within 500 meters (yards) of the airport building.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Friday with representatives of the 22,000 workers who have been on strike since Wednesday, a day after private companies won tenders to operate the airports in New Delhi and Bombay.

"In the interest of the traveling public, the prime minister asked them to call off the strike," Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel told reporters after the meeting.

Singh told the workers that their jobs would remain secure, as the private operators were bound by contract to keep at least 60 percent of the people employed by the Airport Authority of India to work at the two airports, Patel said.

"We will request them to take more people," Patel said. "The rest will remain on the payrolls of AAI, which will continue to operate other airports in the country.

In Bombay, security officers lined approach roads and passenger entry gates as about 150 protesting workers sat outside the airport building. All flights were on schedule, an official said, speaking on condition of anonymity according to policy.

The strike was called after Germany's Fraport and the Airports Company South Africa, along with their respective Indian partners, won tenders to modernize and operate the New Delhi and Bombay airports.

Together, the two airports handle almost 65 percent of India's international traffic _ about 19 million passengers a year _ and are struggling to cope with booming air traffic amid India's economic growth. They have long been criticized for inefficiency and discomfort.