Iberia is dismayed at the irresponsible call for a strike that was recently announced by the majority unions UGT and CC.OO for 29, 30, and 31 December, and 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 January.
Since the results of the AENA tender were announced on 26 September, and in parallel to the judicial process legitimately undertaken by the airline and by the unions themselves to defend the interests of the Group’s handling business, Iberia has been working tirelessly with social representatives to find a mixed and viable solution that allows it to satisfy the main concerns of its workers.
A strike like this, called by the unions during the Christmas period, irreparably damages the right to holidays and the reuniting of families and friends at such important times, and does so, in this case, in an irresponsible and meaningless manner.
A strike is called to defend the acquired or future social rights of workers, as well as labour rights, economic rights, and union rights.
In this case, none of these rights are affected or threatened in any way. These rights are protected by the recent signing of the 5th Convention of the sector, signed by all the unions, including those who are now calling for this reckless strike at Christmas.
The 5th Sector Agreement, which governs labour relations in the handling services industry, guarantees the subrogation of all workers employed at companies that did not win the tender, in this case Iberia, to winners of the AENA tender. Among the indefinite guarantees for workers established by the 5th Convention are:
In other words, the new situation caused by the resolution of the AENA handling tender does not put at risk a single job of a single Iberia worker nor does it violate a single one of their social, labour, salary or extra-salary rights. Despite this, the unions decided to call a strike at Christmas, with the sole purpose of causing irreparable damage to thousands of travellers who intend to visit their family and friends back home during the holiday period.
The strike is also called against a company that, from the beginning, opted for constructive dialogue with union representatives, in order to find a hybrid and viable solution that, through different tools, allows for the creation of business vehicles that serve to maintain a link between the workers and the Group in the new contractors. A link that would allow us to safeguard, even more and from within, the rights of workers.
This constructive dialogue has been carried out in recent weeks and is now broken after the call for the strike, ensuring the failure of these constructive solutions, and what is worse, irretrievably damaging Iberia’s handling business in the short, medium, and long term.
Iberia recognises and appreciates the commitment shown by its workers to the company over the years and the effort made in the toughest times for the sector. In fact, during the COVID pandemic, Iberia was the only company in the aviation and handling sector that supplemented employees' furloughs for eight months. With that same spirit, it opted, from the first moment, for constructive dialogue and the search for a mixed and viable solution for ground services.
During the talks with majority unions, Iberia explained why self-handling and the resulting partial subrogation are not a viable solution, as it would mean that people with greater seniority and therefore those with higher salaries, would remain in the Group.
This would mean that the operators awarded the tender would have the personnel with the lowest salary costs, so they could offer much more competitive prices than those that can be achieved through self-handling, creating a competitive gap between the main Spanish airlines (Iberia, Iberia Express, Vueling) and the international operators that will contract services from the new operators that win the tender.
Beyond the significant economic impact of this competitiveness differential, which would prevent the Group from meeting the level of profitability that it promised its shareholders, if Iberia opted for self-handling the company would be financially rewarding the winners of the AENA contest and the international airlines with which it competes. All of this would ultimately lead to worse results, an inability to grow and a threat to all workers in the immediate future.
Iberia has never carried out self-handling at the airports where it operates; it has always chosen to hire the services of third parties. In a sector with such low margins and, at the same time, such intense human resources requirements, the airport business must achieve the necessary volumes by providing services to third-party companies to achieve minimal profitability.
In fact, in the comments to the AENA ground services tender specifications, the unions themselves, the same ones that are now calling for a strike, positioned themselves against self-handling, due to its “perceptible effects” on “the market situation on which the third-party operator relied to calculate its offers and obtain the concession. This will inevitably have an impact on the profit margin of the operators and it will tend to have an impact on the main item of their costs: the conditions of their staff.” In the opinion of the unions, self-handling “seriously altered the market and competition.”
ASEATA, the handling sector's employers' association, also repeatedly requested the limitation of the self-handling option by airlines. In its comments to the tender specifications, ASEATA considers, among other arguments, that “self-handling generates uncertainty in any bidder aspiring to be an agent” since “when formulating its offer, it will lack certainty about the volume of its activity in the event that it is awarded the tender, since any airline could obtain the self-handling license and, consequently, stop requiring the services of agents.”
Handling is a strategic business, aligned with the Viability Plan approved by shareholders. The company entered the AENA contest with highly competitive offers designed to win. After learning, on 26 September, that it had not been awarded the ground service tender at most of the main airports except Madrid, Iberia attempted to find out the reasons why it had lost, but it was given hardly any access to the justification of the scores.
At that time, the company decided to challenge the process, alleging helplessness due to lack of information and argumentation, failure to comply with legal deadlines, and errors detected in the few score awards that it was able to compare due to the scarcity of data. Iberia appealed to the Central Administrative Court of Contractual Resources (TACRC) to request the suspension of the tender, its subsequent annulment, and the repetition of the scoring process.
On 1 December, TACRC declared itself incompetent to rule on the matter, without going into the substance of the issue, and without assessing whether Iberia was right or not. At that time, the airline decided to appeal to the competent authority, the National Court, requesting, on the one hand, the suspension of the award of the contract and, on the other, the annulment of the TACRC resolution, so that its tribunal may rule on the merits of the matter and annul the award of the handling tender. The appeal was presented on 5 December before the National Court and Iberia awaits its ruling.
Whatever this may be, Iberia will facilitate, as it could not be otherwise, the process of awarding new licenses and the subsequent subrogation of its employees to the new contractors. It will ensure that this subrogation occurs in accordance with the law and guaranteeing all social, labour, salary, extra-salary and union rights, and will remain willing to continue taking part in a constructive and responsible dialogue to find the best possible mixed solution, with the appropriate mechanisms and tools to resolve the concerns of its workers and their union representatives.
Therefore, at Iberia we want to make a resounding call for the immediate cancellation of the announced strike, whose sole objective is to inconvenience thousands of passengers, as well as staff, who have worked tirelessly throughout the year to be able to return home at Christmas, and who are now going to see their rights to meet with their loved ones curtailed by a strike which is not only irresponsible, but also lacks substance and concrete objectives.
