UNIONS representing staff working for petroleum companies at the island’s airports yesterday agreed to postpone a strike due for today, which would have paralysed both Larnaca and Paphos airports.
The dispute is over the renewal of a collective agreement.
Last week, unions gave the Labour Ministry 10 days to approve their demands over pension and redundancy pay rises.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday, BP Chairman George Petrou said the employees had agreed to postpone the strike in order to allow talks between unions, petrol companies and the government to continue today.
“We had long lengthy discussions today at the mediator’s office and we will continue the talks tomorrow,” he said.
“The collective agreement principle has already been agreed. There are two proposals that we would like to discuss further. The unions took that as a rejection of the proposal and this is why they declared the strike.”
Petrou said the dispute over the collective agreement was not unsolvable and that an agreement was expected to be reached at today’s meeting.
“One of the issues under discussion is an annual pension increase,” he said.
“In the agreement, pension increases were always left to the companies’ discretion and although at least one company gave the rises in full, the employees now want the increases to be mandatory.
Petrou said the employees were also demanding an increase in redundancy payments, despite the fact that petrol companies in Cyprus offered “the highest redundancy package in the world”.
“We give people between 1.7 and 1.9 months per year of service, depending on the circumstances,” he said.
“Unions now want to increase this to 2.1 months, and we just can’t accept this, this is not a wage increase that you give every year. Nobody in the world offers such a high redundancy pay.”
A Civil Aviation spokesman at Larnaca airport, Tassos Demetriades, confirmed last night that the strike had been called off.
“I don’t know what will be discussed in their next meeting but they just can’t go on strike without giving us time to notify airlines that use the airport,” he said.
“We asked them to keep us informed and to give us ample time to prepare in case of a strike. According to international law, I should have 24 hours to notify the airlines.”
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
