ETF Position on Transfer of Staff in the European Ground Handling Sector

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Since the implementation of the 1996 Directive on Ground Handling (96-67 EC), ground staff workers and their unions have gone through major challenges. Most of the times, these challenges have led to a reduction in social rights or to a great number of redundancies/dismissals. The biggest threat to social stability for ground handling is, without doubt, the one coming from the lack of a fully applicable European Directive on transfer of staff, as long as the existing Directive covers one of the multiple cases that are arising in the sector. And this situation gets even more evident when one realizes on the manner in which the current legal framework is interpreted at a national level.

The ground handling services in airports that ground handling services companies provide, in one or several categories, to the airlines as airport users, as much as the ones airlines self-provide (self-handling), deeply need a European regulation which clearly targets as a social objective the support of the high quality employment levels and allows the highest warranty to the employment stability principle, also contributing to minimum standards for homogenization of the working conditions in the sector. This regulation would be a guaranty as well to the safety and security processes.

It is also absolutely paramount to review the ¨Directive 2001/23/EC on Safeguard of employee’s rights in the event of transfer of undertakings¨. By doing so, when a new employer (the ¨transferee¨) substitutes the old employer (the ¨transferent¨) totally or partially, the workers that voluntarily accept the transfer from the transferor to the transferee will automatically be accepted by this one. When workers pass on to the new employer, they keep, at least, all the rights and obligations arising out of the contractual and employment relationship, in the same way as they had been for the original employer.

These provisions will ensure that workers will agree on transfers with guarantees for their terms and conditions, with a continuity of their seniority, and will avoid social dumping induced by competition based in lessen employees’ wages and working conditions. The aim of such a revision must be to protect the rights and contractual obligations owed to employees where the business or undertaking in which they are employed is transferred into new hands, totally or partially. This revision must cover as much the compulsory competitive tendering as the partial loss of activity, including the self-handling activities in airlines. The future new law must be applicable for ramp and passenger-service workers. The terms and conditions should remain the same for both airlines and handlers.

Two transfer criteria must be observed in a revised Directive:

- Transfer due to a total loss of activity; in this case, the number of workers to be transferred must be the totality of workers dedicated to the fulfilment of the handling services.

- Transfer due to a partial loss of activity or in case of self-handling; once determined the average of lost activity, this average would be applied to the total amount of staff dedicated to the handling services, and then transferred to the employer capturing the market.

In case of disagreement between employers, an independent expert should be appointed to say how many workers are concerned. In any case, social dialogue should be ensured at local level.

ETF deeply believes that now is the moment to strengthen a “Social Europe” that leads the workers to an improvement of the level of employment and its quality, as well as an improvement of their working conditions.

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