airports
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in transport and distribution around the world.
Strike ballot for BA cabin crew
British Airways has said it is "disappointed" by the Unite union's decision to ballot 14,000 cabin crew about whether to take strike action.
Unions and management have been in talks since the announcement of cost-cutting measures earlier this month.
BA had said it would cut 1,700 jobs and freeze pay for current staff.
"Management's determination to impose unacceptable contractual changes on cabin crew leaves us no alternative," said Unite union boss Derek Simpson.
Union spin on bum deal for airline workers
Union PR machine paints rosy picture of unfavourable deal with management.
At the end of September, unions held a protest in front of the Ministry of the State Treasury concerning the restructurization and proposed dismissal of workers at LOT Polish Airlines. The first sign that something was not right was that almost no workers from LOT were in attendance.
Flight attendants stand strong against lock out across New Zealand
240 flight attendants spent Thursday 7th - Sunday 10th May locked out from work across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The attendants are contracted to Zeal 320, a shell company owned by Air New Zealand, and operate on trans-Tasman and Pacific routes for the airline.
Despite doing the same job as flight attendants contracted directly to Air NZ, the Zeal crew are paid significantly less. The Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union (EPMU), which represents the workers, has been negotiating with Air NZ for months, but Air NZ have been unwilling to move towards pay parity for the Zeal staff.
Athens Airport: death, redundacies, corruption and the pretext of economic crisis
This is an Athens Indymedia article translated roughly by http://clandestinenglish.wordpress.com/
J&P-ΑΒΑΞ Α.Ε. business group operating at the Eleftherios Venizelos Airport has sacked 42 people[b], both Greek and immigrants, who had been employed by the company in cleaning services. They were dismissed with summary procedures on the pretext of the economic crisis, of course. They all had completed three years at the job and were all anticipating the increase of wages that the law foresees.
Unions head off transport workers' struggles in Ireland, airport wildcats planned
Members of SIPTU at the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) last week served notice of strike action on Thursday (1st April) at Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports, but a spokesman for the union said no official sanction had been given for any industrial action at the airports.
The threat came as SIPTU and the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) agreed to suspend industrial action due to begin tomorrow in protest at €31m in cutbacks. But no sooner had one industrial action been suspended when another kicked in.
Cleaners at Schiphol airport hold sit-down strike
Over a hundred cleaners at Schiphol Airport have held a sit-down strike to demand regular jobs, travel expenses and respect.
Prior to the action, they observed a minute’s silence to commemorate the victims of yesterday’s Turkish Airlines crash.
CNT in conflict with Ryanair at Zaragoza
A brief statement from the CNT, Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union, about a conflict with Ryanair.
The CNT declares a Conflict at Ryanair-Zaragoza
TUE, 24/02/2009 - 15:59 – CNT-AIT
After fruitless contacts with the company, begun by the Union Section of the CNT in Ryanair, in order to solve the problems of the workers in the fastest and calmest form possible, this Section declares itself in conflict with Ryanair-Zaragoza, supported by the SOV of the CNT in Saragossa.
More job cuts announced, more to come
As the economic recession restates its international nature, further job losses are to be announced in Jamaica and Ireland, while Swedish unemployment rate rises 14% in one month and the International Labour Organisation predicts 7.2 million workers to be made redundant in Asia in 2009.
Cider maker Bulmers is to make 120 people redundant, seven of them in Northern Ireland. The company's plant in County Tipperary will lose 103 posts, while 11 jobs will be cut in Dublin. Aidan Murphy of parent company C&C, said the cuts, made through voluntary redundancies, was needed to "safeguard the viability of the company".
Baggage handlers take wildcat action at Melbourne Airport
Thousands of travellers faced delays at Melbourne Airport yesterday (14th February) after 45 Qantas baggage handlers went on strike mid-morning.
All of the airline's flights into and out of Tullamarine were affected by the six-hour walkout, which began at 10.30am, in a dispute centring on the length of workers' lunch breaks.
However, after a federal sitting of the Industrial Relations Commission, all the staff were ordered back to work about 4.30pm. A Qantas spokesman said the strike was illegal.
Sugar workers strike against bosses and union, striking airport workers fired in Guyana
Guyanese sugar workers have taken wildcat action against a disappointing pay award and their union's attempt to take a larger cut from it. Meanwhile, Guyana's Minister of Transport and Hydraulics Robeson Benn has fired 15 air traffic controllers who had been on strike for a week.
Operations at the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) Wales Estate were at a standstill for the second day in a row, when approximately 100 workers of the estate staged a strike, this time protesting against 0.79 percent of the Annual Production Incentive (API) being contributed to the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union’s (GAWU) funds.
