Aeroflot - No Right to Strike
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Aeroflot - No Right to Strike
More European labor news:
May 25, 2001
Court Rules Against Aeroflot Crew
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:00 p.m. ET
MOSCOW (AP) -- A Moscow court ruled Friday that flight attendants and ground crews for Russia's flagship airline, Aeroflot, don't have the right to strike for higher pay.
The Aeroflot workers had threatened a strike for May 25, demanding shorter shifts and an increase in salaries, which average $600 a month for flight attendants and $250 a month for ground crews.
The union represents 4,000 of Aeroflot's 15,000 workers.
Aeroflot said in a statement Friday that the Moscow city labor committee's arbitration court ruled that the trade unions do not have the right to strike, according to company regulations.
Vyacheslav Kozlov, executive director of the airport mechanics union, shrugged off the ruling.
"The only reason there is no strike is that we decided to settle our differences peacefully,'' he told Dow Jones Newswires.
But he said the unions plan to pursue legal action to get their wages increased.
Aeroflot employees have accused the airline of mismanagement and amassing debts of $500 million, which they say endangers passenger safety because the company can't afford maintenance.
The unions already held a one-hour work stoppage May 13, delaying 14 international flights. The brief stoppage cost Aeroflot $1.5 million.
Aeroflot broke into dozens of smaller airlines with the 1991 Soviet collapse and suffered financially along with the nation's overall economic decline. Despite some improvements in recent years, technicians say Aeroflot's fleet is in such poor mechanical condition that mishaps are inevitable.
