French pilots lift call for strike
Ok I know, the lot of ya will say.......... AGAIN ! Where is the news ? Specially after the 3 weeks of pure madness the country went through.
However the issue was a hot one :
While we were all queuing up for hours in the hope to get a pint of petrol, the governement was already working on a new budget bill for the chronically money bleeding social security.
The plan was to tax, both employers and employees for any benefit granted outside of the compagny even for those part of the same group.
This would have meant having to pay a full fare on a ZED ticket, or any airline, member of the Air France KLM group. City Jet, Brittair etc...............and of course the same for all employees working for these compagnies regarding Air France main line.
It would also have included car rentals, hotel rooms, in short everything that makes this profession a nice one.
Air France made it very plain that, should this be the case, they would simply pull the plug on staff travel creating havoc among all the commuting community, roughly 60 % of AF cabin and tech crew.
After a rather eventfull 5 days, the Senate agreed to rewrite the infamous amendment and we're back to normal as of tonight.
According to a newspaper article, the distinguisged MP who wrote this lunacy of a bill, said " AF staffs are just behaving histerically, we never intended to target them "
It was a bit like hearing Bill Clinton saying " I didn't have a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky "
All the above to ask you all a simple question :
Do you people and your employer get to pay taxes on staff travel and other freebies ?
I'm sure this thread will be moved to terms and endearments but in the meantime I'd love a feedback from our european or Australasian colleagues.