A total of 160 air traffic controllers from 16 Spanish airports with privatized towers – which manage 28.5% of air traffic in Spain – have been called to a strike for several days in February due to the failure of their collective negotiations. The call for a strike by the USCA and CCOO unions -according to the majority Efelos- is addressed to the 160 professionals who provide services at the airports of A Coruña, Alicante-Elche, Castellón, Cuatro Vientos, El Hierro, Fuerteventura, Ibiza, Jerez, Lanzarote, La Palma, Lleida, Murcia, Sabadell, Seville, Valencia and Vigo.
28.5% of aircraft movements in all Spanish airports, according to data from the second of the aforementioned private providers. These unions were negotiating the collective agreement with the APCTA business association, which encompasses both private providers of the liberalized market, but they have finally considered the negotiations broken, for which reason they call a strike on January 30 and 6, 13, 20 and February 27.
These are the five consecutive Mondays from January 30 and all the professionals who will have work shifts on those days beginning between 00:00 and 24:00 are summoned. As they have explained in a joint statement, both especially criticize SAERCO’s attitude, “opposite of reaching any type of agreement” and that it has “obstructed from the first moment” the union proposals, despite the fact that FerroNATS has indeed reached “Points significant in common”.
FerroNATS has added in this regard that it has been unable to agree on a proposal with Saerco, the other private supplier affected by the strike, given that the positions of both before the requests of the unions “are remote”. Thus, FerroNATS does make some of the unions’ requests, such as incorporating into the agreement the concepts included in the center agreements that their controllers already enjoyed, extending it to the rest of the towers.
It also accepts the request of the social part regarding vacations according to a scheme of 22 working days plus 14 holidays, explains FerroNATS itself, which says it is willing to continue negotiating the proposal for a salary increase above what was offered in previous offers. of the employer FerroNATS insists that its objective is to prevent the end user from being affected by this decision and is committed to “guaranteeing adequate minimum services” that mitigate any impact on the activity it provides in the different Spanish airports.
It coincides with the inauguration of Fitur
The unions also warn that “the system cannot work based on the efforts of a fatigued staff and with constant cuts in rights consolidated in the past.” This call for a strike has been announced coinciding with the opening day of Fitur, which opened its doors this Wednesday in what is expected to be the edition of the full recovery of tourism, the country’s main economic activity.
In this sense, USCA and CCOO defend that closing a new agreement is particularly “necessary at this time of air traffic recovery, and even more so when the image of the country’s main economic activity would be harmed by the level of delays at its airports. “.
