KLM ground crew plan 8 hour strike for next Wednesday; Airline has made improved offer
Update 6 p.m. - article updated to add offer from KLM
KLM’s ground crew workers will go on strike next Wednesday, the trade unions CNV and FNV announced. The Dutch airline’s luggage handlers, counter staff, and security guards, among others, will stop working for eight hours. “We want KLM to come up with something concrete for the ground staff. We will not accept vague promises,” CNV said. KLM wants to enter into talks with the unions, the airline told ANP.
The strike will happen on July 9 from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Schphol expects that day to be a “peak travel day” at the airport. It is early in the Netherlands’ summer vacation, and many are going on vacation by plane. Schiphol expects crowds at the airport.
Last week, the court in Haarlem banned a 24-hour strike by the KLM ground crew. The trade unions immediately announced that this would not be the end of their labor actions.
“We are confident that the strike can go ahead this time,” CNV negotiator Souleiman Amallah said. “Based on the passenger figures that we have demanded from Schiphol and KLM and the agreements that we have made in the safety consultation, we are convinced that this strike can take place safely.”
The trade unions are protesting for a better collective bargaining agreement for the ground crew. They want a decent early retirement scheme for people with physically taxing jobs and for all ground crew to retain their purchasing power. According to the unions, KLM’s commitments on these points are too vague.
The current collective bargaining agreement for the ground crew expired in March. “The ground staff are extremely angry, because after all these months they still have no collective labor agreement and no pay rise,” Amallah said. “In the meantime, millions are going to the management and the pilots. The ground staff feel that they are the ones who are paying the price for the budget cuts KLM wants to implement.”
KLM is disappointed that the unions want to strike, a spokesperson told ANP. "We informed the unions last Friday that we would abandon the [pay freeze] and come up with a wage offer that we will discuss today," the spokesperson said.
The airline made a concrete wage proposal to all the unions in the afternoon. They hope that this will provide enough common ground to reach an agreement at the collective labor agreement negotiating table. Employees will be able to receive a one-time payment of 1,000 euros this year with the new offer. This would then be followed by a structural salary increase of 2.5 percent dependent on the profit that the company makes this year.
