The unions are at loggerheads within the Lufthansa Group. At the leisure airline subsidiary Discover, pilots and flight attendants want to join forces and oust a third union.
In the Lufthansa Group, two unions are preparing the next strike at the holiday airline Discover Airlines. The Cockpit Association for the pilots and the cabin crew union Ufo for the flight attendants have announced that coordinated ballots will begin this Thursday (August 15). The aim of this joint approach is to reach an agreement on better working conditions. The vote on industrial action is due to end on Wednesday (August 21) next week.
The background to this is the collective agreement between Discover and its rival union Verdi, which, according to the estimates of the two unions not taken into account, has only a few members among the approximately 1,900 flight personnel employees. “An illegitimate employee representative has been elevated to office by management,” says Ufo collective bargaining expert Harry Jaeger.
Three years after the founding of Discover, Lufthansa and Verdi have concluded salary and collective agreements that are valid until the end of 2027. These agreements provide for salary increases, allowances and special payments. Company pension schemes, duty rosters and sick pay subsidies are also taken into account. The holiday airline operates 27 aircraft from Frankfurt and Munich on tourist routes.
Ufo and VC could now try to use strikes to push through their own, competing collective agreements at Discover. Only then would it be necessary to check which union has more members in the company. A prior membership count was suggested, but Lufthansa did not respond to the suggestion.
The VC pilots at Discover already went on strike last winter for the first collective bargaining agreements, while Ufo had called for a strike in order to even enter into negotiations with the company.
For Verdi, the agreement is a success because up to now, the union has only been significantly represented in the Lufthansa Group among ground staff and in the Eurowings cabins. The only collective agreement for pilots is at the cargo subsidiary Aerologic.
The agreement is demonstrably higher than the demands of VC and UFO, emphasized Verdi negotiator Marvin Reschinsky. “The current conflict shows that both parties are not interested in achieving more for the employees, but rather in securing power and importance within the group. In the end, however, their public stance on Discover Airlines is blocking growth and thus career prospects for their colleagues there.” Verdi has been experiencing a wave of employees joining the company for days.
Source: Stern
