Hard times for Norwegian

[737lpa]

Kirks,

It´s SEPLA, not SELPA.

if the crew transfer were illegal, they were illegal even if the company had not abandoned anyone

WRONG. You can have subsidiares take care of certain things like payroll, local arrangements, etc..., but as long as you don´t have production (like it´s the case with NAR ES), then the mother company is liable for their employees, and that includes compensation for redundancies. As a matter of fact, the creation of NAR ES back in 2017 was precisely to comply with a previous sentence in Spain where OSM and other arrangements for cabin crew (Adecco) were found to be illegal by a labour court.

The Pilots woke up to a nasty smell and then started to think about compensation etc etc.

We don´t think of compensation now as a result of this situation. A permanent employee in Spain is ALWAYS entitled to compensation when made redundant.

No, it hasn't got a pot to pi** in, the assets have all been taken over by the shareholders.

That statement is so absurd that I won´t even bother...

they simply don't have the funds to pay millions in settlements.

If you don´t have the money for the settlements then you can either file for bankruptcy of the whole group (like many airlines unfortunately have done) or keep everyone furloughed until production resumes. Furthermore, you can meet with union representatives and try to negotiate somewhere in the middle to survive the storm, ie. we can´t pay you know, but you can stay in the government subsidised scheme while we arrange our finances and get back to business later on. Meanwhile, you´re still part of the team, let us do free extensions on your licenses, keep your ID, uniform and corporate email and let´s see where everything goes. That´s what a socially responsible enterprise does with their staff.

What you cannot do in any case is disappear like nothing happened, disconnect your staff from intranet as if they´re no longer your problem, let all their ratings expire and on top of that ask them to reapply for their jobs wishing them good luck for the future.

but the UK pilots and BALPA realise that the only income the crews will get here is the furlough scheme

In case you´re not up to speed with what´s going on, please read below how BALPA is coming along the ride to protect their jobs along with SEPLA and how, apart from some brownNoseWarriors, staff in the UK is equally worried about norwegian´s social practices:

Sadly, any victory may be hollow ifs the banks predict, NAS will fold or be taken over, in which case all bets are off.

If NAS gets taken over, it gets taken over with its assets, debts and staff obligations like any other company. Indeed, you can actually say that it has been taken over already by lessors and bondholders.

If NAS folds completely it definitely won´t be because of their crews not doing their job, and I seriously doubt they will collapse at this point. Crews from Spain or anywhere in the network are not looking for the company to go bust. We´re just looking for the company to be responsible and to follow the law.

I don´t think it´s so hard to understand and, as you say, the courts will decide.