Sacked staff's tears force Jet Airways boss into U-turn

Sacked staff

au.news.yahoo.com

MUMBAI (AFP) - The boss of India's biggest domestic airline said he has scrapped plans to lay off up to 1,900 employees because their tears caused him sleepless nights.

All 800 employees at Jet Airways who had already been laid off were called back to work Friday -- just 48 hours after they were told to go by the airline, citing large losses.

Jet said earlier this week it would sack up to 1,900 employees, marking the first mass layoffs in the formerly booming Indian aviation sector.

"I could not sleep at night. I was mentally disturbed when I saw tears in their eyes. I apologise for all the agony you went through," Jet chairman Naresh Goyal told a news conference in Mumbai late Thursday.

He said he had made a "personal decision... without any external pressure."

"The management will have to understand this," he added.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 17/10/2008 by Kryties]

Wow. In a world that I had almost given up on, finally somebody shows up who offers a glint of hope to the rest of us. Somewhere, out in the big, wide world of corruption and bloodsucking, there is hope.

In a world where I am forced to look at EVERYBODY with suspicion and fault, I have been totally thrown back by this. There actually ARE people out there who care, few and far between perhaps, but they DO exist.

Not everybody is a bloodsucker.

au.news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

It is great to read a story like this but what will happen when the company goes belly up and every employee loses their job?

This is the type of stuff I love to see! Great work for bringing this to our attention. Maybe having a heart is starting to make a comeback

I was taking a lunch break from work a few days ago and I decided to try out this local restaurant that I'm always passing. Anyways I made my order and handed them my card and they told me they didn't take cards. The owner was right there and she said exactly this "I'm not going to let someone go without lunch, I'm going to front this for you and just come and pay us when you have cash." I nearly fell off the stool! Never has that happened to me and I must say it made me have a bit of hope for this thing we call society. I went back and paid her about an hour after I left

Just felt like adding another example of how nice people can still be.

ethical business? this cant be true .........

nice to see some people still care about the employee's when they get to a large company status

It's nice but I doubt if it'll work for the long term. Meanwhile we can help by supporting multiple companies' products to make sure there's competition and more workers are hired.

pffft as someone who was recently made redundant I can feel their pain but I understood why they laid me and 8 others off.
It's the same deal here I'm sure, the company is losing money, they gotta cut costs. What good will it do when these 1900 workers end up sacked WITHOUT entitlements because the company goes into receivership? with the weak boss right there with them.

The real question is whether that manager has knowingly sacrificed profit in the name of keeping his employees.

I know we all naturally are inclined to 'believe' that if a company is 'cutting back' they must be 'losing money' - and maybe that is often true. But I have found (and believe me I do a lot of mundane financial analysis) that many times they are cutting back to maintain a certain 'level' of profit for their board and shareholders.

Frankly, I see that as an anti-social motivation to put people out of work.

But that's a personal opinion.

We really don't know the details of the decision, as the business aspect of this is always maintained within the realm of 'trade secrets'. But if he can afford to keep these employees, he does so at a cost to something else. If it is at the cost of sustainability of profit growth, guess what - this is the 'moral' thing to do, not the 'corporate' thing. If it's going to make running the business impossible, it is a pointless gesture which will end up with everyone unemployed eventually anyway.

Originally posted by Maxmars
The real question is whether that manager has knowingly sacrificed profit in the name of keeping his employees.

I know we all naturally are inclined to 'believe' that if a company is 'cutting back' they must be 'losing money' - and maybe that is often true. But I have found (and believe me I do a lot of mundane financial analysis) that many times they are cutting back to maintain a certain 'level' of profit for their board and shareholders.

I agree with this. Sometimes it's because money is being lost, but other times, it's not about loss, it's about increasing year-on-year profits. Not making as much overall profit, often still large amounts, is spun as a loss.