The mediation of the Canarian Labor Court has also not served to stop a strike that has already lasted 11 days at the Guacimeta airport. The representatives of the Swissport workers at the Lanzarote aerodrome and a company lawyer tried this Wednesday, again, to reach a consensus to stop the strikes, this time with the intercession of the Court after a previous failure of the negotiation on Saturday. But there was no agreement this time either and the Workers' Assembly decided to continue with the strike. In addition, the Works Council has denounced new Swissport hires to the Labor Inspectorate for considering them "illegal".
The five people from USO and CC.OO. who make up the Works Council, together with a CC.OO. lawyer, attended Wednesday's negotiation. But upon their arrival at the Courts they did not find any familiar faces from the company, but rather a lawyer who was attending "on behalf of". "We didn't see our direct boss or anyone. Then we thought: there's not going to be anything here," explained Lorenzo Montelongo, a member of the Works Council, on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero.
That lawyer, Montelongo pointed out, explained to them that the offer that the company had put on the table on Saturday, in which some positions had been advanced, "no longer existed, it had expired." "What are we here for?" Lorenzo explained that the workers' representatives then asked themselves, as they had come to the negotiation "thinking about that possibility."
Thus, the negotiation broke down again and each party maintains its position. After the meeting, a workers' assembly was held and it was decided to continue with the indefinite strike. "People were stunned. They don't want to, when we don't think it's that much either, it's simply complying with the agreement, but they say they are complying with it," explained this union representative. "If we withdraw now, we lose," said Lorenzo Montelongo in this regard, since for the moment Swissport has not accepted the demands for which the stoppages began.
Labor inspection investigates the new contracts
The company, for its part, "continues to maintain that it is moving forward, it has power in quotation marks, in the sense that it has loaded minimum services and has hired people within the strike notice, about 5 new contracts," Montelongo pointed out.
It is precisely these contracts that the Committee has asked to be investigated. "It seems to us that it is illegal," said Montelongo, pointing out that these hires made after the strike had been announced would be "in fraud of law." Thus, they have denounced these contracts to the labor inspector and this Thursday the Committee is scheduled to meet with her to discuss the matter.
