Originally Posted by
Non-PC Plod
If the pilots cannot strike - can they all call in sick with stress-related illness brought on by the management's treatment of them?
No they cannot. Although the
article 28 of the Spanish constitution considers the strike as a legal right of any worker, there is also a related law (
RD 17/1977) regarding what is called "
minimum services" wich are the minimum emergency services to be maintained in case a strike is announced by emergency workers.
It happens that if anyone involved in a strike (
and considered in a "minimum services" role) refuses, or try to mislead the authorities, in order not to perform his emergency duty, then the authorities might impose severe penalties for anyone for doing so. Most of Babcock Spain contracts fall into this as they are mostly emergency services, such as Fire Fighting; SAR; HEMS.
The problem is that the government, in order to protect the general public usually establishes a definition of "
100% minimum services", what on one hand is quite fair for the general public, as the government does his job in order to protect the citizens life, but this has the high cost of leaving the oneīs who perform these services without the right to manifest themselves. The ambiguity of the law even seems to allow the company to establish the instruction of the personnel involved in this services and the maintenance of backup helicopters as "
minimum services".
It has been hard to see on the news, the interviews of pilots, rescuers, mechanics and even desk personnel, saying that beside all this hard situation, no person will be left un rescued at the sea, the fire fighting pilots saying every fire will still be fight while on (this fictitious) strike, and the mechanics saying they will still do their best to keep the machines flying at their best level of security. In the end all this story is showing us all what some of the current managers of this and other companies donīt see, and donīt understand, and that is that the best asset of any company is their staff.
In the end, the question is:
who will rescue the rescuers when they need ??