Faced with a strike by ground staff at the Barcelona airport on July 27 and 28, in full vacation operation, called by the UGT and USO unions, Iberia Airport Services wants, first, to apologize to all the customers of the affected companies for a situation that it has tried to avoid until the very last moment.
In recent years, Iberia has been able to reach agreements with union representatives of all groups in all circumstances, and has shown that it is permanently open to dialogue and negotiation.
In this case, the company's attitude has been exactly the same. Since the strike was announced, Iberia Airport Services has been and remains open to dialogue and negotiation until the last moment, as always.
It has attended the two mediation days convened by the Generalitat and yesterday, July 25, convened at its own initiative it convened the Strike Committee in an attempt to call off the strike, making a proposal that encompasses all the points that could be negotiated locally with the Strike Committee.
Unfortunately, despite the company's willingness to reach an agreement on all points, the one that refers to Contract Transformation cannot be negotiated with the Barcelona Strike Committee, since it is outside the scope of the power of said committee.
This is included in the minutes of the agreement signed on July 24, 2018, within the mediation process urged by the General Directorate of Laboral Relacions y Qualitat in Treball, which led to the revocation of the strike called for the 27 and 28 of July 2018, and which referred to an agreement signed at national level, by the general secretaries of the main trade union organizations.
This document established that Contract Changes would be negotiated within the framework of the XXI Iberia Ground Personnel Collective Agreement, in an agreement that had been negotiated with all workers' representatives since September 2018, which is in an advanced stage and which may be delayed by this strike call, with the consequent impact on the renewal of contracts with our customers.
This call for a disproportionate strike is also being carried out in the few critical days of July arrivals and August departures. And all this in an airport, such as El Prat, which suffers from the well-known problems of airspace saturation and delays, as has been shown by Eurocontrol.
Iberia Airport Services repeats its apologies to its customers and expresses its permanent willingness to engage in dialogue and negotiation until the last minute.
