Airport handlers are back on strike for another weekend, prompting fears of further chaos in the country’s airports, principally Humberto Delgado, in Lisbon.
The handlers employed by Menzies (formerly Groundforce) have scheduled five 4-day stoppages through the busiest time of the year for tourism, claiming employers are not interested in ‘dialogue’. Their issues, as always, centre on pay and conditions.
SIMA (the syndicate of metallurgical industries), one of the syndicates powering this strike, has repeated in a new statement issued this week, that “this strike is the direct result of the intransigence of the Menzies administration (represented by the company’s vice-president Rui Gomes) which has opted for confrontation instead of dialogue, refusing solutions in respect of workers rights, and the interests of the country”.
Indeed, SIMA accuses both Menzies and TAP (49.9% co-owners of the old Groundforce company) of ‘turning their backs on their professionals, customers and everyone who visits Portugal, with a calculated, arrogant and irresponsible attitude”.
Menzies, on the other hand, accuses syndicates of “promoting a distorted narrative” and “showing a lack of availability for honest dialogue”.
The problem with both these positions is that they lead nowhere: thus, ‘customers and people visiting this country’ are the ones being made to suffer.
This latest strike will run until midnight on Monday (it began at midnight last night). SIMA and ST (the Syndicate of Transports) are calling for “the end of a base wage below the national minimum, better salaries, payment for nighttime work, and other demands”, explain reports, which refer to ‘minimum services’ having been imposed, which Menzies doesn’t feel are ‘sufficient’, and which it have added a “robust” set of contingency measures.
For those flying between now and Monday, it looks like being a case of hoping for the best – and trying not to put luggage in the hold… the last strike saw hundreds of passengers parted from their luggage, which for those taking connecting flights later, will have been a nightmare.
SIMA meantime has filed two criminal complaints with the Public Prosecutor’s Office against Menzies management and TAP. One of the complaints is for violating the Constitution and strike law, “based on the direct replacement of striking workers, unilateral changes to schedules, suspension of breaks during periods of extreme heat and various forms of repression and illegitimate pressure on workers”. The other is for “paying base wages below the minimum wage, a serious and unacceptable violation of Portuguese labour law”.
After this strike, the next are scheduled for August 15-18 inclusive, August 22-25 inclusive, and August 29 – September 1 inclusive.
Source: Lusa/ SIC Notícias
