Good news for once for aircraft passengers – a three-month ‘strike’ called by airport handlers has been cancelled (indignantly) because the minimum services decreed would have obliged them to perform 80% of their normal duties.
Claiming that “our ministers currently wish to restrict” the “constitutional right of workers” to protest (in such a fashion that causes havoc to the lives of innocents), unions SIMA and STA have vowed that “other forms of struggle are already being considered”.
For employers SPdH/ Menzies this is nothing short of a coup.
The unions had been threatening to snarl up the works “for various periods between September and January”, including the holiday weekends taking in Christmas and New Year.
The Arbitration Court of the Economic and Social Council’s Arbitration Board however decreed minimum services, with SIMA “vehemently denouncing” terms outlined, calling them “a real attack on the right to strike of Portuguese workers in general and of that company in particular”.
The decision required 100% of flights on the mainland and islands and 35% of international flights to be handled.
According to SIMA, the Arbitration Court’s decision is “completely contrary to previous ones” and is based “on totally inappropriate assessments and non-objective criteria regarding the duration of the strike, neglecting workers’ rights and resulting in a decision worthy of a travel agency”.
“We know that our ministers currently wish to restrict this constitutional right of workers, but we cannot agree with this position in any way,” the union bristled.
In SIMA’s view, “the entire process by which minimum services were decreed is flawed by a breach of trust on the part of workers in a structure that should serve the interests of all and not just a few”.
“It was with perplexity that we saw workers’ arbitrators (who were not chosen by the workers) become employers’ arbitrators, which is indeed unusual and very strange,” the union adds, stressing “other forms of struggle are already being considered” – without giving any clue as to what these may be.
SIMA’s decision to pull out of strike action thus saves flyers the prospect of ‘increased travel misery’, at least until the New Year.
Source material: LUSA
