CYPRUS Airways (CY) unions yesterday issued a warning to the airline’s management yesterday that if they wanted talks on a plan to save the company to continue, they would have to meet basic requests that did not involve “victimising” staff.
Discussions have been under way for weeks between management and unions on a strategic plan to save the company, which involves some 400 redundancies starting with the 135 people that will become surplus when the airline sells off two of its Airbus A320s in November.
The Board of Directors of the airline had been hoping for co-operation with the unions in order to make the plan work, but over the past few weeks, talks have deteriorated.
Yesterday, the pilots union PASIPY and SIDIKEK-PEO said that after studying the plan, they had been disappointed with the way the company was going about saving itself financially.
“After studying the plan we have to express our deepest disappointment for the haphazard actions taken by the board to deal with the situation, which they created through lack of vision ideas,” said a statement from PASIPY.
The union blasted the transfer of “business and property” belonging to CY to its subsidiaries Eurocypria and the Athens-based Hellas Jet, which is suffering losses of around £1 million a month.
The dire performance of Hellas Jet is seen as the chief cause of the CY’s first-half pre-tax losses of £30 million announced late last month.
“These actions result in the loss of employment positions, huge sums of money and a shrinking company,” PASIPY said.
It added that the strategic plan also constituted a violation of staff collective agreements, while attempting to hold on to a failed management structure that was covering the real culprits by victimising staff “who are not to blame for anything”.
“To avoid upsetting industrial peace, the unions suggest that the company stop siphoning funds to subsidiaries, clearly state its position on the future, present a reliable and complete plan for the economic recovery and restructuring of the company, seek the co-operation of staff in solving problems, and avoid unilateral actions that will lead to further problems,” said PASIPY.
In a similar vein, SIDIKEK-PEO said that the ailing state of the national carrier was due to bad management and the creation of Hellas Jet, “which has led it to where it is today – one step away from destruction”.
“The unions demand that responsibility be apportioned to the right people for the delay in taking measures to avoid this catastrophic situation,” said a statement.
The action plan, which the union said came too late, “is imbalanced and mainly affects the employees and that’s why it shouldn’t be accepted”.
“Despite all this, the unions agreed to talk about the situation and is ready under certain circumstance to contribute to any measures that would help the company recover,” the statement said.
“But it is not possible to accept the victimisation of workers and agree to the measures that create redundancies, the transfer of work and outsourcing without touching the managerial pyramid, which has huge responsibility for the situation.”
