New Delhi: Air India on Thursday said it was working on the formalities to disburse salaries to lower grade employees by Friday, as per the agreement reached with the unions last week.

“Air India is working towards paying wages and salaries to its employees in the lower grades on July three as part of the decision finalised at a meeting with the unions last week,” an airline spokesperson told the agency.

He said since the payments were being made only to those employees as a special case on July three instead of the earlier decision of doing so in the middle of the month, “the process of identifying all eligible employees in various departments on various grades, is taking time.”

The formalities to make the payments through the electronic clearance systems were also being complied with, the spokesperson said, refuting reports that the salaries would not be paid tomorrow.

Following several rounds of discussions in the past two weeks, the unions had withdrawn their call for a day’s strike after the management agreed to disburse salaries of around 70% of the unionised workforce by Friday.

The unions had been protesting the management’s earlier decision to pay the salaries by 15 July.