The main airline at Barcelona airport, Vueling, faces three months of strikes among its cabin crew. The Stavla union, the majority in this group, has called strikes in the company every Friday, Sunday and Monday between November 1, 2022 and January 31, 2023, as well as on November 1, 6, 8, December 24 and 31 of this year and January 5, 2023, key dates of the Constitution or Christmas bridge holiday period.
According to the workers’ representatives, the strike call responds “to the absence of significant progress in the negotiation of the collective agreement and the lack of real intention shown by Vueling to solve the salary demands of the group of cabin crew” . The union demands a salary increase of 13.4% for this 2022. The increase “is only intended to adapt the salary tables of the collective agreement to the current standard of living”, they point out from the union. Stavla also affirms that if the conflict persists, they will extend the strike “indefinitely”.
Vueling reached an agreement with the CC.OO union. in August to raise cabin crew salaries by 6.5%, corresponding to the 2021 CPI, but Stavla distanced itself and did not sign it. Now, this union is preparing mobilizations to request a new salary increase in the negotiation of the agreement. The company has lamented that this “is not the time to divide ourselves but to join our efforts to build the future of Vueling together”. According to the IAG airline, Stavla’s requests at the negotiating table of the IV Collective Agreement reach “salary increases of 33% until 2025”.
The call for the strike is conditional on the concession by the company of an additional 13.4% increase, “which would be added to the 6.5% already agreed in the summer of 2022,” Vueling insists. The company directed by Marco Sansavini stresses that an increase of this magnitude “is unfeasible, since its consequences would be the loss of our competitiveness and could imply a reduction in the size of the company and a necessary reorganization”. Vueling accumulates losses of 1,000 million euros during the pandemic, in addition to an increase in debt of 260 million to cover the impact of covid on its business.
Several airlines have suffered strikes this summer in Spain, such as Ryanair, Iberia Express or easyJet. The conflict in the Irish low cost is still open, although the stoppages already have very little follow-up.
