LO hard against SAS – requirements at the company re-employ former employees
Earlier this week, DN wrote that the airline SAS is establishing new subsidiaries, called SAS Connect and SAS Link.
With the creation of the subsidiaries, recently laid off employees need to apply for the job again. During the pandemic, SAS laid off about 40 percent of its employees.
Criticism has been leveled at the airline after the news became known, among other things from the unions to pilots and cabin crew at SAS. Now LO is also throwing itself on.
-Very many SAS employees have been unemployed for over 1.5 years as a result of the corona pandemic. They have taken the biggest blow for all of us. Now the LO community stands with them, says LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik in a press release.
LO writes at SAS, through the establishment of new subsidiaries, circumvents a five-year re-employment obligation for dismissed employees. Dismissed employee must have time to apply for his job again – for worse conditions, writes LO.
– What SAS is now doing breaks with what we associate with a unique working life, and is unsympathetic. That SAS creates new companies to get re-employment of former loyal employees is unacceptable behavior of a company that has also benefited from the community’s funds, says LO secretary and head of LO Aviation, Are Tomasgard.
“Challenges decency”
Among other things, LO points out that Norwegian manager Kjetil Håbjørg said that the company would like to have former employees, when he was asked during Arendal week if the company wanted the employees to be Scandinavian employees when aviation picks up.
According to LO, it can not be something to be applied for something new.
-LO and the LO unions have through the corona pandemic actively used the party cooperation, and stood shoulder to shoulder with the employer side and the airlines to get on economic economic arrangements for aviation. Entire communities have lined up. The fact that SAS, under cover of the pandemic, launches creative company structures that circumvent agreements and the right of former employees to get their jobs back, is a breach of the social contract, says Tomasgard
LO’s message to CEO Anko van der Werff is now to reconsider the company’s plans, comply with the right to re – employment by taking back employees – without having to apply for their jobs again.
– It is very disappointing that such an important company as SAS, with long Scandinavian traditions, challenges the decency of aviation. At the same time, we notice that there are new players in China, who will build on the Norwegian models and a trusting price collaboration, says Tomasgaard.
Must secure SAS space
SAS, like most airlines, has been hit extremely hard by the pandemic, with losses in the billion-dollar crisis.
Press manager at SAS Denmark, Alexandra Lindgren Kaoukji, says that the reorganization is a necessary step.
– In order to become profitable again, we need to develop the operational platform that the company had used even before the pandemic. It is thanks to our operational platform that we can meet the tough competition and thus both secure and future jobs in Scandinavia, she writes in an email.
Lindgren also points out that SAS has agreements with a total of 38 different unions, and that the company has entered into an agreement with one of Denmark’s largest unions.
– We owe it to our owners and lenders and also our employees to secure a place for SAS in the future trade after the pandemic, Lindgren concludes.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and / or our suppliers. We want you to share our stuff using a link that leads directly to our pages. Copying or other use of all or part of the content may only take place with written permission or as permitted by law. For further arbitrary terms see her.
