New Delhi, Trade unions of national carrier Air India on Monday termed the airline's new 'leave without pay' scheme as akin to illegal lay-off.

Accordingly, the Joint Action Forum of Air India Unions strongly opposed the new scheme in a letter to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

"We are indeed shocked that the management of Air India could prepare and formulate a scheme for compulsorily sending workers on leave without pay, which is akin to an illegal lay-off under the garb of a leave without pay, when ironically the redundancy actually lies in the upper echelons of the management and not with the humble workers of Air India, who have slogged to make the airline the treasure it is," the letter said.

"It must be noted that out of the 11,000 permanent employees, our management occupies almost 25 per cent as 'Executive Cadre', with little or no accountability. Solely among the 'Elite Management Cadre', we have 121 top officers ranking from DGMS, GMs, EDs to Functional Directors, most of whom are either performing duplicate job functions or are indeed redundant, and not to mention the retired relics serving as consultants and also the CEOs of various subsidiary companies," it added.

As per the letter, which has been reviewed by IANS, the forum said that though "we do not wish, the redundancy or compulsory leave without pay scheme, if any at all, has to apply only to these executives, more so, when they do not even have protection of Labour laws or Supreme Court orders".

Besides, the forum said that no meeting or negotiation have been held with any trade unions, barring that of the pilots, over these issues.

"We once again request you to intervene and halt this abominable compulsory leave scheme and grant us a meeting with your good self to discuss the way ahead for all of us together," the letter said.