Union spin on bum deal for airline workers

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. Instead, there was a large group of mostly paid activists and union officials, the overwhelming majority of which were from the railways.

LOT had announced that it wanted to cut about 900 jobs. At least one union announced that it was looking to negotiate a 30 per cent pay cut instead of job cuts.

Then LOT told the unions not to worry, that they only wanted to cut 450 jobs. The unions were "so angry" that they had not been invited to negotiate. They filed a claim in court, held a show protest and were eventually invited for talks.

The unions went to the negotiating table. A deal was made, presented as a sort of "win-win situation" for both the workers and company. Only 440 people were to be dismissed.

A couple of days later, we found out that in fact, at least 600-700 people will lose their jobs in the next six months. How is it possible that an agreement is made, but more jobs will be lost? Very simple. If you do not renew a fixed-term contract or contract for an outsourced position, you are not technically dismissing anybody - even if you are eliminating this job.

And there is no guarantee that LOT won't cut more jobs later next year. In short, if LOT wants to cut 900 jobs, it probably will.

Quite technically speaking, the unions don't represent outsourced staff anyway. So as long as downsizing occurs in that area instead, they can claim to their members that they "saved jobs".

Unionists also proudly announced that there would be "no pay cuts". This is almost true from a technical point of view. If "pay" is considered salary minus all other parts of the pay package. But for many workers in Poland, other parts of the pay package - including all sorts of important benefits - account for up to 30% of a person's total remuneration. Indeed, without benefits, many workers feel that the pay they receive is simply too low. But the unions agreed to "give up" different benefits on behalf of the workforce, effectively lowering even the take-home pay of LOT employees.

The employees have now found that they have nothing to say in the matter since their duly-elected representatives already made their decisions. Such is the nature of representation.

The exact details of the agreement have not been published. General information on the deal was given to the press by both company and union representatives.

See also:
http://www.pracownik.net.pl/unions_sign_unfavourable_agreement_with_lot
http://zspwawa.blogspot.com/2009/09/zsp-supports-lot-staff-but-not-selling.html
http://zspwawa.blogspot.com/2009/10/zsp-on-bad-deal-at-lot-and-pr-of-unions.html
http://www.pracownik.net.pl/unions_take_lot_to_court