Sabena’s shake-up fuels strike action

Date: 19/10/1995

By Tim Jones

TRAVELLERS flying in and out of Brussels' Zaventem airport could soon be feeling the effects of this summer's purchase by Swissair of a near 50&percent; stake in Belgium's national airline.

The management of Sabena broke off diplomatic relations with the main labour union after a half-hour strike by its pilots in September. It then decided to end a series of agreements with the union over working conditions for pilots and mechanics.

Pilots at charter subsidiary Sobelair launched a wildcat strike on 4 October.

Sabena's President Pierre Godfroid then stirred the pot with a radical plan to create a minimum extra 1,000 jobs with the company.

He plans to end wage indexation for the group's 9,500 staff, total working flexibility and a two-hour extension of the working week to 40 hours. This prompted the Belgian Association of Pilots and Airline Technical Crew (ABPNL) to call a one-day strike for tomorrow (20 October).

The union has accused the company of social vandalism inspired by Swissair, which now has representatives on the executive board and shares the livery on the planes.

In the years since Godfroid took over at the firm in 1990, the pilots have already accepted major increases in the number of flights.

“Despite that,” ABPNL say, “with the abrogation of two agreements, our whole arsenal of social protection is being dismantled”.

Godfroid has little patience with the complaints from pilots who, he claims, are earning as much as 130,000 ecu a year. Sabena pilots laugh at this figure, claiming it should be divided in half to get the real annual salary.