Air France: a union of three up in the strike notice
The threat of a strike by cabin crew of Air France for the Thanksgiving holiday continues to weigh, despite progress in negotiations. One of the three unions, Unac, has indeed lifted its strike notice on Tuesday, after further management proposals. "Given the achievements and progress of these negotiations, delegates from the Unac consider that we should not miss this opportunity to meet our demands," said the union.
But two other unions, the SNPNC-FO and UNSA-Air, have maintained their parallel strike notice, which shall commence from 29 October for three to five days.
Negotiations break down including the number of crew members present on long flights, medium and short haul Air France would like to reduce.However, "this will place a serious case of the safety of passengers on flights of Air France," a judge of the unions representing flight attendants and stewards, the SNPNC-FO, in a statement.
Individualisation of pay
The unions also challenge the project management to change the evaluation system flight attendants. Air France would they be judged by their purser, rather than instructors, who are former cabin crew, as is the case.
But the unions, particularly the UNSA-Air, fear that this reform does not lead to an individualisation of pay in lieu of the automatic promotion today. They also fear that this new mission will turn the heads of cab "chefaillons.""After eight hours of negotiations, management has not provided a satisfactory response to our demands," summarized the SNPNC-FO cash advance today.
The social atmosphere is tense at Air France, then the group is setting up a savings plan which aims to restore its competitiveness. The priority of the airline is more than ever to fight against fierce competition from low cost airlines, said Jean-Cyril Spinetta, head Air France-KLM, in an interview to Le Monde dated Tuesday.
Restore competitiveness
To do this, Air France opened on October 2 its first regional base in Marseilles, to serve thirty destinations. Other bases are expected to follow in Toulouse, Nice and Bordeaux in 2012, after negotiations with the unions. The opening lines of low cost flights from Marseille had required a significant reorganization of work, to achieve lower costs by 15%.
If negotiations prove difficult, the group has little choice. Air France KLM has lost 40% of its market value in two and a half years, and suffered a loss of 197 million euros in the first quarter of fiscal 2011-2012. Just days after replacing unexpected Pierre-Henri Gourgeon Juniac by Alexander at the head of the group, Air France – KLM is also expected to issue a warning on its results for the period April to September, announced on Tuesday morning radio BFM Business. The company declined to comment on this information.
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