Hi,
I'm a spanish atc and I'm still stunned with the government action. Of course it is clearly an ilegal line of action, since there was no labor conflict nor strike threat. This law violates all agreements, spanish labour law and even the Constitution. They justify this action on the general interest and on the difficulty they found in negotiations around the overtime agreements.
As you should probably know by now, we are severely understaffed, and since our worktime is 1200h/year (not very different from other countries, isn't it?), our ANSP relies in paying expensive overtime hours to meet the increasing traffic demand. This agreements made our salaries rocket, just as our working hours did (up to 1800 per year or even more).
They decided recently our salaries were causing navigation fees to rise and provoking finantial trouble to our company. The latter hard to believe, since navigation deficit was less than are 300millon€ this year and AENA's dept rises well above 13.000million€. So they called upon us in order to negociate a new agreement that should severely cut costs. Negotiations were running, although it soon came clear AENA was aiming far higher (they sought to eliminate most of our labor achivements, not just overtime costs) and that they already had a hidden agenda.
Things came clear last tuesday when AENA broke negotiatios suddenly. Our union declared our firm intention to keep doors open to further talks and our clear commitment to avoid any action against traffic flow (especially regarding incoming easter holidays). AENA accused us of blocking negotiations with unreasonable demands and having bad faith in the whole process.
On friday, the government publishes urgently this decree-law: a law enacted by the government due to urgent needs that, although firm and applicable from the begining, must pass through parlliament in a month or so.
This law wipes out most of our labor rights, increasing our worktime (1750h, mandatory), reducing salary, denying retirements for the next 3 years...
It also introduces the possibility of new ANSP offering TWR control, AFIS, new ways of disciplinary action, recruitment of new atcos at AENA's single choice...
I really think that the Government's bad faith in this matter is clear. Such law cannot be prepared in just two days. They definitively had no intention to negotiate anything at all.
In the meantime, the media campaign is runnig hard. Many people praise this hard-hand politics being used against such overpaid and arrogant workers. Scareingly, it reminds me of some actions taken recently by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Government popularity may rise a bit, this controversy will work well as a distraction for a while, but in the meantime our country has several acute problems waiting for direct action (have any of you read any recent economic news about Spain?).
There are also many other dirty deeds being used by the government against us. USCA's web has been seriously atacked by hackers (not amateurs, precisely), and we really suspect many conversations of union leaders are being monitored.
Fortunately, spanish trade unions have hit the roof with this news. They fear this kind of ilegal action could be used against any workers considered a threat to the general interest (whatever the government decides it is).
USCA has announced legal action and is also studying further actions.
I would personally recomend the rest of atco unions in Europe to stay alert and study our case. Next one could be anyone.
Last edited by pamplinas; 5th February 2010 at 23:18.