Three men ignored their duty and fiddled with their mobile phones. They were ticked off.
In any professional organisation, that should be enough to get them back to work. Not at the Kolkata airport.
Three contractual employees of a private agency responsible for cleaning the washrooms of the airport were busy on their mobiles for a long time ignoring work when airport officials on inspection spotted them.
The terminal manager asked the agency’s supervisor to mark these three absent.
“The next day, a big group of contractual employees started a sit-in demonstration in front of gate 3C of the departure level (where the office of the terminal manager is located) for more than half an hour,” said an airport official.
“We had to mark the three present in that day’s work register and also promised to look into their problems so they resumed work,” he said.
A senior airport official said they recently received several complaints from passengers regarding the bad behaviour of the cleaning staff.
“When a passenger asked why the washroom was dirty, the cleaning personnel asked the passenger to go to another washroom if he did not like it,” said the official.
Trade union activists and leaders have held Kolkata airport to ransom for many decades. The tendency was somewhat regulated after several private agencies were given contracts for different scopes of work.
However, officials of the Kolkata airport and some of the private agencies said the “aggression” among contractual workers has increased in the past six months and they are regularly creating trouble.
The result, passengers are often greeted by dirty and stinking washrooms and garbage not being cleaned on time.
A senior executive of a private hospital chain, who is a frequent flier, said he never saw a cleaner in a washroom at Kolkata airport late in the evening.
“When I use the washroom in the morning or afternoon, at times I have seen some cleaners standing. But in the evening, after 8.30pm, I have never seen any cleaner,” he said.
“The last time, I was returning from Chennai late in the evening, the washroom at the arrival area was stinking. But there was no one to whom I could complain,” he said.
At Bangalore airport, he said, a cleaner would always be present. “They would
also greet passengers and wish them a safe journey,” he said.
Another Kolkatan, now based in Bangalore, was taking a flight from the city on Wednesday morning. “I used the washroom before going for the security check. There was a horrible stink,” he alleged.
A senior official of one of the private agencies who has been given the cleaning contract said he was recently called to Delhi by officials of the Airports Authority of India.
“They told me there were several complaints about dirty washrooms at Kolkata airport. I expressed my helplessness in failing to deal with the unions. They understood and requested me to resolve the issues with the union leaders,” he said.
There are around 400 cleaners for the departure level, facades and also for the lounges and food courts, run by another agency.
Despite this, complaints of dirty washrooms and floors flood in.
“The garbage from the lounges and food court are taken down to the basement and from there these are supposed to be disposed of in the garbage vat. But the cleaners never want to remove the garbage at night,” said an official of the private agency.
According to an airport official, earlier two factions of the ruling Trinamul Congress were controlling the contractual workers’ unions at Kolkata airport.
“Now, one faction has become weak and so the other one is trying to take full control. This has led to an increased aggression in the behaviour of the workers over the past few months,” said the official.
“We can change the agency, but the cleaners will remain the same,” he pointed out.
Another official said all the 80 washrooms at the airport would be “overhauled”. “There are some problems with exhaust also. These things will be taken care of. But if the workers ignore their duty, the problem will remain the same,” he said.
Saugata Ray, Trinamul MP from Dum Dum and chairman of the airport’s advisory committee, said he had not received any complaint.
“Neither any private agency nor airport official has complained to me regarding the problem with workers. But there should not be any problem. Workers will work. Otherwise, they should not get paid,” said Ray.