Government plays hard-ball with cabin crew union

Helena Grech After the Union of Cabin Crew (UCC) stormed out of a meeting with Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis late on Friday, the government has started a recruitment process for Air Malta cabin crew adverts published in various newspapers calling on people to apply as from tomorrow.

In view of the stand-off between the two sides, this could be seen as a thinly veiled threat by the government to apply pressure on current Air Malta cabin crew to comply with what is being offered.

This newspaper is informed that negotiations between Air Malta and the UCC were underway until late last night and that a breakthrough could be expected sometime today or tomorrow.

But, in the meantime, the airline is turning up the pressure and the advertisements in today’s papers call on all trained cabin crew to apply for a three-day refresher course starting tomorrow.

“An attractive salary and competitive benefits will be offered to successful applicants,” the advert reads.

This is not the first conflict to unfold in relation with embattled Air Malta, with the Airline Pilots

Association (ALPA) previously taking industrial action over a collective agreement that expired last year. The dispute seemingly came to an end on Thursday night, after the Department of Information published a terse statement saying all the relevant parties’ interests had been safeguarded, and an agreement had been reached.

On Friday 19 August, the news broke that the UCC had walked out of a meeting with Dr Zammit Lewis, with the latter stating that the union had given no reason as to why it stormed out.

Details on Air Malta collective agreements

Sources close to negotiations have told this newspaper that the UCC had been offered a similar package to what had been offered to ALPA. The Malta Independent on Sunday made a number of attempts to ascertain what the details of the agreement with ALPA entailed in the light of the very public dispute between the two sides over the issue. ALPA, Air Malta and the Tourism Ministry all failed to divulge any details.

However, sources said that the government was ready to guarantee jobs and take-home pay for cabin crew against an increase in productivity, as had apparently been offered to ALPA.

In contrast to the ALPA settlement however, it was said that “the UCC does not agree with increasing productivity, in line with practices at other European airlines, to make Air Malta more competitive and to secure its long-term viability”.

Previous transgressions

In addition to guaranteed jobs and take-home pay, sources also say that “an important part of what government is asking for is that management takes over decisions related to operations and work practices during flights in order to avoid situations similar to the one that happened recently.

Such examples include: “Refusal to warm up baguettes distributed to Air Malta passengers; refusal to distribute promo cards as per management’s instructions; refusal to service a cake to a loyal passenger who has been flying with Air Malta for the past 35 years, refusal to service a hot meal on a Malta Football Association flight for the na- tional team; and refusal to service a hot meal to the Lazio football team on a charter flight.”

Industrial action ordered by UCC

Sources speaking with The Malta Independent on Sunday added, “Cabin crew are being asked by the UCC to not work on their off days. This means that if a cabin crew member calls in sick, management will not be able to find a replacement and therefore flights might need to be cancelled.

“Management can then ask a part-timer to replace the sick cabin crew member, but according to the collective agreement the other full-time cabin crew members can refuse to work with the part-timers. This can lead to the flight not having enough cabin crew and therefore flights would have to be cancelled.

“UCC are sending text mes- sages to its members encouraging them to refuse work on their off days.”

An internal risk assessment carried out by Air Malta when ALPA had threatened further industrial action some weeks ago found that grounded flights could cost the national airline as much as €575,000 per day, in a worst case scenario during the peak season.

Air Malta has been hit by serious financial difficulties for several years and is currently in the thick of negotiations over a strategic partnership with Italian national carrier Alitalia.

After government negotiations with the EU Commission in 2011, which allowed a state subsidy of €130 million, it was established that by 2014 Air Malta had to balance its budget and register a profit by March 2016. After this period, under EU state-aid rules which safeguard fair competition within the EU’s internal market, the only injection of cash allowed would have to come from private sources.

Air Malta projected losses of €4 million for the financial year-end March 2016, is significantly lower than the €15 million loss registered at the end of March 2015. The EU Commission did not impose any penalties in view of the progress made between 2015 and 2016. In the light of the ongoing financial struggles and the inability to receive further state aid, concluding negotiations with a strategic partner is of paramount importance to ensure the viability of Air Malta, the airline said recently.