The Spanish Union of Airline Pilots (Sepla) has announced a strike in Air Europa for May 1, 2, 4 and 5 in all bases and work centers in Spain. Currently, the airline has a route between Lanzarote and Bilbao, with three weekly frequencies, and another between Lanzarote and Madrid that has two frequencies.
In June, the company plans to double the frequencies from Lanzarote to Madrid and add two new routes between the island and Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona.
The union argues that "this measure responds to the tension and labor conflict generated by Air Europa executives playing with the rights of workers, disguising as proposals what amounts to a real loss of acquired labor rights in the IV Collective Agreement."
The pilots feel "discriminated against by the company" and consider it "discouraging" that in a last opportunity to avoid the strike with the mediation of the Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration System (SIMA), the airline's executives "have opted for confrontation instead of negotiation, threatening and disqualifying the pilots instead of seeking a point of understanding between both parties."
The union states that "the pilots have demonstrated their commitment to the future of the company, as was seen in the ERTE during the pandemic, with the high personal cost for the pilots." In addition, they point out that they have demonstrated their "responsibility for social peace", as demonstrated by the fact that the last strike call was in 2011.
"What the group will not allow," the union warns, "is a business management that seeks to profit at all costs, against users and workers." Against users, they denounce that the company has raised "more than 54% the plane tickets in the last year" and against the workers, with "arbitrary impositions and cutting working conditions."
The union clarifies that this strike is a "unanimous mandate that the pilots granted to Sepla" in the assembly held in February. Likewise, the union demands that the company that the strike call "not serve as an excuse to coerce and pressure workers, as has already happened in the circular sent by the business management to its employees."
