The General Union of Workers (UGT) surprised locals and strangers alike by making public a statement in which it disassociated itself from the strike by Iberia handling workers. "Given the seriousness of the events that occurred in the assembly on June 22, when the majority of the works council did not allow the vote of the attending workers to know if they were in favor or not of the strike called for the 26th, and not considering this situation fair, UGT disassociates itself from the indefinite strike called by the center's committee, until the decision to support or not the protest is submitted to a free and secret vote before the workers' assembly." With these words, the union explained its withdrawal from the strike, which leaves the rest of the organizers in a compromised situation, to say the least, especially considering AETUR's statement criticizing the union strategy of the airport workers.
José Torres Fuentes, vice president of AETUR, commented on Radio Lanzarote that "the strikes at the island's airport have become commonplace," because they are called at least every two months, which has outraged and tired the island's tourism business community, as stated in a statement from the Federation of Entrepreneurs published by this newspaper. "We all understand that workers' rights must be respected, but what is clear is that you can't always close the entry doors to an island." The measure of the unions integrated into Iberia is even more surprising considering that, being a conflict in the regional sphere, the Guacimeta airport is the only one in the entire archipelago that is going on strike, when the most affected by the Binter restructuring are the workers of Tenerife and Gran Canaria.
In this sense, the Federation requests Binter to "not operate flights with Lanzarote until it has guarantees of normal operation and assistance to its passengers." The purpose of this would be not only to exert pressure on the unions to adopt different ways to carry out their protests, but also to prevent passengers from suffering the consequences of the ground handling staff strike, which would mean hours of delay in the delivery of luggage, in addition to serious deficiencies in the rest of the services offered by the Guacimeta handling workers.
