MANAMA, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Bahrain's Gulf Air plans to lay off 272 employees this year and workers may strike, a union leader said on Sunday, but the state-owned carrier denied any outright lay-offs were planned.
Mustafa al-Tooq, chairman of the Gulf Air trade union, told Reuters the union has evidence that the airline plans to reduce the number of employees to 4,800 by the end of the year from the current 5,072, by laying off 100 employees until the end of October and the rest thereafter.
Gulf Air said it did not plan to lay off employees beyond cutting positions by employee attrition and firing employees for misconduct.
'Any current positions being made redundant are through natural attrition and those resulting from employee misconduct,' its Chief Executive Samer Majali and Chairman Talal al-Zain said in a joint statement. The statement did not detail how many positions would be scrapped.
Tooq said management was trying to cover up lay-offs. 'If they don't listen well, we will go on strike, after exhausting all peaceful means (of negotiations),' Tooq said.
Three chief executives have attempted to turn around loss-making Gulf Air since 2002, cutting jobs and realigning its network as previous shareholders Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Oman gave up their stakes in the ailing carrier.
But efforts to resurrect the company, one of the largest employers in the small Gulf island kingdom, have been hampered by political opposition to measures seen too drastic.
Samer Majali, former chief executive of Royal Jordanian , last week took up his post at the helm of Gulf Air.
(Reporting by Frederik Richter; editing by Firouz Sedarat and Marguerita Choy) Keywords: GULFAIR JOBS/ (dubai.newsroom@reuters.com; +971 4 391 301) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
Mustafa al-Tooq, chairman of the Gulf Air trade union, told Reuters the union has evidence that the airline plans to reduce the number of employees to 4,800 by the end of the year from the current 5,072, by laying off 100 employees until the end of October and the rest thereafter.
Gulf Air said it did not plan to lay off employees beyond cutting positions by employee attrition and firing employees for misconduct.
'Any current positions being made redundant are through natural attrition and those resulting from employee misconduct,' its Chief Executive Samer Majali and Chairman Talal al-Zain said in a joint statement. The statement did not detail how many positions would be scrapped.
Tooq said management was trying to cover up lay-offs. 'If they don't listen well, we will go on strike, after exhausting all peaceful means (of negotiations),' Tooq said.
Three chief executives have attempted to turn around loss-making Gulf Air since 2002, cutting jobs and realigning its network as previous shareholders Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Oman gave up their stakes in the ailing carrier.
But efforts to resurrect the company, one of the largest employers in the small Gulf island kingdom, have been hampered by political opposition to measures seen too drastic.
Samer Majali, former chief executive of Royal Jordanian , last week took up his post at the helm of Gulf Air.
(Reporting by Frederik Richter; editing by Firouz Sedarat and Marguerita Choy) Keywords: GULFAIR JOBS/ (dubai.newsroom@reuters.com; +971 4 391 301) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.