Volotea airline workers in Bilbao denounce being fired for organizing union elections
Seven workers of the Volotea airline at the Bilbao base denounce having been fired from the company for “organizing union elections to negotiate a decent agreement that regulates their salary, rights and working conditions.” The workers, who are part of a workforce of 110 people, 23% of the company’s total, also criticize having been notified of their dismissals after a night flight. “In the middle of the flight they gave us the message that when they arrived in Bilbao they needed to go to human resources. We had the first flight at noon and we arrived at 23.30. When we arrived exhausted and we expected the worst. We arrived with a form letter saying that our performance had dropped, when we had been flying non-stop all summer. Then they recognized that those were not the reasons”, confesses to this newspaper one of the affected people, who after the news claims to have suffered an anxiety attack.
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Four of the seven people fired were affiliated with the Comisiones Obreras union (CCOO) and were organizing union elections for the first time, a reason that he considers the trigger for the dismissals. “We have been working in very precarious conditions for four years and now that we have decided to protest for what we consider to be fair, they are doing this to us,” he maintains. From CCOO they report that they held a meeting in July with the company’s management to try to channel the situation from the negotiation. “In it, several issues were assessed, such as the types of contracts, the company’s refusal to enjoy vacations for its workers or salary. The union understood that a negotiation path had been opened that would bear fruit in the short, medium and long term, but this maneuver by the company puts us in totally opposing positions”, they denounce.
“After that meeting, Volotea felt threatened because just a month later, when they no longer need us because flights decrease at the end of the summer, they kick us out,” says another of the people affected. Most of the dismissed workers had been in the company for four years, but they had recently been hired as “discontinuous permanent”, that is, jobs with vacancies throughout the year in which they did not receive salary, but they could request unemployment benefit, something that with the previous contracts they could not do. “When we were away without flying before, we didn’t get the basic salary from Volotea and we couldn’t ask for unemployment. That is why we protested with the issue, so that they would change our contract and be able to request unemployment benefits for the months that they did not fly, ”she explains. Thanks to their protests, the company changed the type of contract to be able to request unemployment benefits, something that the workers considered a small victory in conditions in which they ensure that their base salary does not increase the Minimum Interprofessional Salary.
“Every year, when we start working, the same thing happens to us. By receiving only the base salary for the first month, we only earn about 500 euros, so I always have to ask my family or my partner for financial help. There are many people who believe that stewardesses get paid a lot, but that is not always the case,” says another of the workers, who in her case regrets that she found out about her possible dismissal before going out to fly, something that “could put her life at risk. flight safety” due to his state of mind.
“Faced with the staff’s decision to organize, the company has responded by notifying a series of layoffs in less than 24 hours. Even more, he has come to communicate the termination of the contract with premeditation and treachery, mid-flight and after a hard day’s work and after landing at Bilbao airport. These perverse maneuvers can only respond to anti-union practices that seek to leave workers without a voice to impose job insecurity and jobs without rights”, they denounce from CCOO. Due to this situation, part of the workforce has demonstrated at the Loiu Airport in Bilbao this Friday and the workers have announced that they will call for new demonstrations in the coming weeks.
From Volotea they have informed elDiario.es that “these departures have been punctual and correspond to a minimum number of people who have been discharged for not having passed the trial period or for failing to comply with the airline’s performance standards. Standards that employees know and that are common to all company personnel. Same justification that they received in their dismissal letters and that those affected flatly deny. “We have flown 95 hours in July and 98 hours in August. We have had to do favors for the company like moving to Venice to cover flights and they tell us that our performance has dropped. It does not have any”, regret the affected people, who do not rule out taking meaningful legal action against the company for unfair dismissals.