The strike that Swissport workers have been holding since August 22 at Guacimeta airport could be dissolved this Tuesday. After a fourth frustrating meeting last Friday, the company made a new approach to the Works Council over the weekend, agreeing to modify the point on which the "discord" was focused on Friday. Thus, the Works Council has accepted the draft agreement and this Monday afternoon it will be the assembly of all the workers who will decide if they are satisfied with the proposal and put an end to the stoppages.
"I think most will say yes," said Lorenzo Montelongo, a member of the Works Council, on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero, who assured that its members are "happy" with the outcome of the negotiation. Montelongo acknowledged that the stoppages "are not having the impact we wanted." But he celebrated that, "even so" they have "achieved part of what we wanted." For this reason, he stated that the members of the Committee are "convinced" that the workers as a whole will say yes and will also accept that draft.
As he explained, these representatives of the workers already attended the meeting on Friday, the fourth they had held trying to reach an understanding, thinking that they would sign an agreement. In fact, they agreed "on 13 of the 14 points included in the strike notice." It was when they reached the point regarding the part-time hours of the workers that the negotiations were cut short. The company proposed a list of people "marked by them" to choose those days and that those who did not want to be "falling off the list." "Then there would not be 25 people" as they offered us, said Montelongo, who indicated that the committee, however, proposed that "each one choose" and that the list continue downwards until reaching those 25 people.
At the meeting on Friday, the company did not agree to that point. "It really changed a little word," said Montelongo. That word, however, meant "screwing up the type of contract" for those who have part-time hours in the company, so, "disappointed," the members of the Works Council decided not to accept the agreement.
Already during the weekend, it was the head of Swissport in Spain, Pino Marín Curbelo, who contacted the committee "directly", Montelongo explained. "He spoke with us and approaches began to emerge. He offers us that draft again but changing that point in our favor and adding some more that we had asked for and they had forgotten to put it in the draft." Thus, they finally decided to accept that draft, in which they also "give them hours of hiring for the rest of the summer, September and October, and some other loose ends." Thus, after the vote of the assembly, an end could be put to a strike that has already lasted 22 days.
