Croatia Airlines Signs New Collective Agreement with Three Professional Unions

Croatia Airlines and three of the five professional unions organized within the company – the Union of Engineers and Technicians in Aviation, the Independent Professional Union of Aircraft Mechanics of Croatia, and the Independent Croatian Union of Employees in Aviation – signed a new collective agreement today.

The unions representing flight attendants and pilots refused to sign it, with flight attendants maintaining their announcement that they would go on strike due to reduced earnings.
The employer and the three unions agreed to a 5 percent reduction in the value of the point (the basis for calculating salaries) and a smaller part of material rights, according to Croatia Airlines. The new collective agreement covers more than 70 percent of the 1,100 employees at Croatia Airlines. The company’s management “expresses hope that, in the interest of the company and employees, through negotiations and a joint effort to find an acceptable solution for all parties, an agreement will also be reached with the remaining two unions – the Croatian Union of Air Traffic Pilots and the Cabin Crew Union of Aircraft.” 

They add that by signing the collective agreement, the three unions contributed to the anticipated savings for the company in the area of labor costs, which Croatia Airlines, as a company in majority state ownership, is obliged to do according to a government decision from 2009. The provisions of the new collective agreement, which is valid until the end of 2010, apply from January 1 of this year, and according to them, salaries for employees for January will be calculated. The president of the Aircraft Mechanics Union, Igor Pavelić, stated to Hina that they decided to sign the collective agreement after the management withdrew its proposal for more radical cuts to salaries and other rights, which they justified by the difficult financial situation the company found itself in due to the global crisis. The new proposal achieves savings in the mass of funds for employees, while salaries are still minimally affected, says Pavelić.

The Cabin Crew Union of Croatia Airlines, which includes flight attendants and stewards, did not accept the employer’s offer but remained firm in their announcement that they would go on strike on February 26 at six in the morning. In that union, they do not want to reconcile with the collective agreement that would, as they claim, reduce their earnings by between 20 and 40 percent. As they say, their membership would be most affected by the reduction of sick leave compensation, which, due to the nature of their work, is most utilized by cabin crew, the elimination of free hot meals, which will cost them more than 800 kuna monthly, and the elimination of commission for the sale of duty-free goods. The management did not even provide us with the opportunity to negotiate a new Collective Agreement but only about cutting our rights, emphasizes the president of that union, Suzana Artuković Vuksan, adding that through these negotiations they wanted to resolve numerous non-material rights. However, she expects that the dispute will be resolved through talks before the strike begins, as at this moment, a strike is not in anyone’s interest, neither the company’s nor the employees’. The Croatian Union of Air Traffic Pilots also did not sign the collective agreement but will continue negotiations after electing new leadership at their assembly on Friday. (H)