In the air

With over 600 flights cancelled in a week and two Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) union employees killed, the crisis over the proposed privatisation of the national air carrier escalated beyond the government’s expectations. On Monday, some flights were resumed as workers were forced to join work on threats of action against them, but by and large the crisis is still unresolved. Talks between the government and the unions have made little headway with an increasingly authoritarian government clearly showing no interest in talks. Yet, pressure has mounted on the PML-N from political parties of all shades. An All Parties Conference in Lahore organised by the Jamaat-e-Islami rejected privatisation of the airline as have the PPP and PTI. That in no way exonerates these parties from the burden of unashamed hypocrisy that they carry. Just a day after Imran Khan demanded the Essential Services Act being used against the protesting PIA workers be withdrawn, his own KP government showed no scruples in enforcing the same act against doctors on strike against the privatisation of public hospitals. Leader of the Opposition Khursheed Shah asked the government to divert Rs300 billion from other projects to the airline and allow the PIA workers a chance to improve the airline’s performance. Instead, the government appears to have come up with a plan to set up a PIA subsidiary with a clean balance sheet. The plan would involve shifting 40 percent of workers and aircraft to the new subsidiary. Rather than being a pro-worker proposal, it seems like an innovative, cleaner way of privatising the airline and has all the imprints of the IMF on it.

It is fairly clear that there has been no serious attempt to turn PIA around by any recent government. In such a situation, is the PIA unions’ proposal to ask the government to hand over the entity to them for one year inappropriate? The argument that PIA’s overstaffing has caused its high losses has already been challenged in reports stating that only 20 percent of PIA’s expenditure is on employees’ wages. This is lower than other major airlines. Why then has the government been keen to blame PIA’s workers and unions for operational losses. The reality is that the blame lies with the coffers of the bureaucracy and political government. Similarly, the government’s assurance that there would be no layoffs goes against history. Despite promises, tens of thousands were laid off jobs as the Karachi Electric Supply Company and Pakistan Telecommunications were privatised and there is little chance that PIA will be any different. Moreover, the government has failed to answer that if PIA is indeed an ‘essential service’, then why is it being privatised? There may be a way out of the crisis if the government learns to do the one thing it is poor at: consult. The issue of PIA must be brought up for discussion in parliament. But more than that, the government should create an investigation committee to look into how to fix PIA; the committee should include independent economists and members of the PIA unions and promise to implement its recommendations. Instead of taking its cue from the IMF, the government would do well to give the PIA workers a chance.