The pilots’ union Cockpit is again calling for a strike at the Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings. The union is remorseful about the negotiations with the employers: “This strike would not be necessary if Eurowings negotiated with us on an equal footing.”
The union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) has once again called on the pilots of the Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings to go on strike. After a one-day strike last week, there should now be a three-day strike starting next Monday, VC said in the evening. Negotiations on a collective bargaining agreement failed again, VC is demanding a reduction in the workload of the cockpit staff, it was said to justify it.
The strike is said to start at midnight on Monday night and end on Thursday night. Last Thursday, around half of the 500 planned flights were canceled due to the one-day strike action. Up to 30,000 passengers were affected. The employers’ side described the union’s demands as excessive and the strike as disproportionate.
However, subsequent negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement apparently did not lead to any rapprochement. “This strike would not be necessary if Eurowings negotiated with us on an equal footing,” explained VC spokesman Matthias Baier. He accused the company of “wanting to play for time”. The offers of the management are “completely insufficient”.
Above all, the union is demanding a limit on the maximum flight duty times and an extension of the rest periods for pilots. “The remuneration of the cockpit staff is not part of the negotiations,” emphasized VC.
The current call for a strike applies again only to the German subsidiary of Eurowings, but not to Eurowings Europe, which is licensed in Austria, or to Eurowings Discover. Once again, the decentralized airports in Germany outside the Munich and Frankfurt hubs are likely to be hit hardest. Eurowings had already described the first wave of strikes as disproportionate.
