They have the right to take to the streets. It is legitimate for them to gather and wave banners in their free time. They can protest against a measure they believe may harm them, such as the privatization of the ...
They have the right to take to the streets. It is legitimate for them to gather and wave banners in their free time. They can protest against a measure they believe may harm them, such as the privatization of Spanish airports. They even have the legal right to call strikes. But what they cannot do is sell us that they do it "for our own good".
After the disaster caused by air traffic controllers, now it is the entire Aena workforce that is threatening new stoppages, as a continuation of the protests they have been staging against the partial privatization of the public entity. And waiting to see the damage it may cause in its time, since the stoppages are announced in the middle of Holy Week and in summer, the first damage is already done.
Only the headlines announcing these possible stoppages mean that many tourists may be rethinking their next vacations, faced with the threat of being stranded for hours at an airport, or with the risk of canceled flights. And the fact is that, no matter how many minimum services are established, the operation of the airports will obviously be affected. Therefore, even if there is no strike in the end, tourists could have already been lost, in the case of those who are now planning their next Holy Week vacations.
But if that damage to which they are subjecting the Spanish economy, and in particular that of Lanzarote (not to mention the damage to the residents of this island who want or need to travel on those dates) were not sufficient reason for outrage, we must add the far-fetched justifications of the unions.
As almost always when public workers announce a strike, now they are trying to convince us that their protest is not only labor-related. They claim that the privatization will worsen the service that Aena provides to citizens, that airports could be closed and they even dare to insinuate that security could be neglected. In short, they try to transfer their own fears to society. And their fears, no matter how much they try to disguise them, are not that the airports are going to be better or worse.
Here, as in all protests, what they are defending are their jobs, their salaries and their working conditions. And for this, they use the supposed defense of public companies. Has anyone ever seen a stoppage or protest by Aena workers for the lack of investment that the Lanzarote airport has received? Or because the demanded expansion of the runway is not carried out? Or for the chaos that the change of the landing system generated just a few months ago, which meant dozens of flight cancellations?
Sincerely, it would be better to call things by their name, because it is increasingly difficult for the rest of society to swallow the story. It is not about demonizing civil servants or public workers either, but about questioning the methods used by some of them. And the fact is that, no matter how fair a claim may be, the problem is that in their fight against the administration, they end up putting the rest of the citizens as a shield, if not as hostages.
The job security enjoyed by public employees, and of course the weapon they have in their hands when providing essential services, means that those who end up paying the consequences of their protests are those who are least to blame. And far from avoiding it, they use it as a weapon of pressure, because they know the damage that a strike can cause in areas such as health, education or, in this case, air transport.
Therefore, they cannot ask for understanding from the rest of society, and even less so in the current economic crisis. Today, even keeping a job seems like a privilege for most workers and, therefore, it is even more difficult to sympathize with the labor "problems" of public employees. And even more so considering that to defend them, they are putting the island's economy at stake, and complicating the expected recovery of tourism, which could generate employment again.
Undoubtedly, they have the right to strike, but the rest of the citizens, who probably work more hours, for less money and in worse conditions, also have the right to be outraged.
