The Air Europa pilots will begin this Monday the four days of strike that the Spanish Union of Airline Pilots (Sepla) has called for May 1, 2, 4 and 5 at all bases and work centers in Spain, in order to demand improvements in working conditions.
According to the union, this measure responds to “the tension and labor conflict generated by Air Europa executives playing with the rights of workers, disguising as proposals what represents a real loss of labor rights acquired in the IV Collective Agreement” .
The pilots, who assure that “giving in to pressure from the company would have led to worse working and salary conditions in the short and medium term”, denounce that they feel discriminated against by the company, since it is the only labor group affected by this behavior of the airline in the different negotiations that it has held for salary reviews.
“Giving in to these pressures from managers would have been irresponsible with the professional and personal future of the group of pilots,” they add.
For Sepla, it is “disheartening” to see how, in a last chance to avoid a strike with the mediation of the Interconfederal System of Mediation and Arbitration (SIMA), “the managers of the airline have opted for confrontation instead of negotiation, threatening and disqualifying the pilots instead of seeking a point of understanding between both parties, as was the wish of the technical crew membersâ€.
The union defends that “the pilots have demonstrated their commitment to the future of the company, as was seen in the ERTE during the pandemic”, and that they have demonstrated their responsibility for social peace, as demonstrated by the fact that the last call for strike was in 2011.
“What the collective will not allow is a business management that seeks to profit at all costs, against users and workers. Against the users, raising plane tickets by more than 54% in the last year, and against the workers, with arbitrary impositions and cutting working conditionsâ€, they conclude.
