CYPRUS Airways (CY) unions last night handed in their written responses to the final restructuring plan presented to them on Tuesday evening.
According to CY chairman Lazaros Savvides, the only union that had not handed in its request for clarifications was pilots’ union PASIPY. However, he said he had spoken to the union and they had given a reason.
“It’s not a problem,” he said. “They have written down their questions.”
The airline must reply today to the unions’ request for clarifications and by tomorrow the unions are expected to give their final ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the changes made to the plan.
Savvides said only the engineers’ union ASSYSEKA had told the company it would not be able to respond on Friday because it needed time to organise a general assembly due to the Christmas holidays.
The CY chairman warned that the answers given tomorrow would have to be definitive. “We want a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ from unions. No ‘yes but’ or ‘no but’. No ifs or buts at all,” he said.
None of the unions were particularly happy about the situation yesterday, although they had managed to win a number of concessions from the company during negotiations over the past three weeks.
They managed to hold on to their provident funds, their working hours, earned higher compensation for those leaving the company under a redundancy package, and some other minor benefits relating to working conditions. CY pilots will also benefit from the merging of operations between CY and Eurocypria, although this has upset the charter firm’s pilots.
CYNIKA’s Costas Demetriou admitted the revamped plan they were given on Tuesday was better than the previous one.
“But the situation is very difficult,” he said. His sentiments were echoed by officials from the other four unions, but though crew union SYPKA felt a huge part of the concessions were being made by its members.
However, Savvides said he didn’t have any official indication that cabin crew were negative towards the plan. He said each of the four unions had submitted letters in writing from one to three pages seeking clarifications.
Asked what would happen if any of the unions said ‘no’ on Friday Savvides said the situation would be evaluated if and when such a scenario materialised.
“If this scenario emerges, the company will proceed with any decision it feels it is necessary to take,” he said. “We have alternative plans.” He hinted, however, that the board would go ahead in any case with the plan and inform the EU of the situation.
Vice chairman Frixos Savvides said how the company would act in the event of a ‘no’ from any of the unions would depend on which union was saying ‘no’.
“It depends on how important this union is,” he said.
“If it’s the catering union we can have immediate alternatives but if the pilots’ union disagrees we will deal with it in a different manner. It’s not necessarily a matter of keeping the pilots happy. It’s a matter of getting them to understand what’s going on because at the moment no one is happy,” he added.
It has been made clear to the unions that it was a choice between accepting the plan or seeing the company close down.
??
??
??
??
