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Regional work is key to global successes, says Ingo Marowsky

Regional activities and events are, for the ITF, crucial pieces of the global aviation industry puzzle. Viewed separately, these pieces show disparate situations and developments. They interconnect and come together to give us an overall, if varied, image. But in aviation, there simply is not one concise global picture.

Major developments, including most notably the events of 11 September 2001 and the Sars virus epidemic, plunged both aviation and tourism into unprecedented crises – greatly accelerating the scale of the global industry’s cyclical downward swing.

But the impacts were experienced very differently in the different regions. Traffic on the North Atlantic was the most seriously hit by the 9/11 attacks. So airlines relying on this market more than on others suffered more than those whose main revenue was created in other parts of the world. The Sars epidemic, which was concentrated in Asia, obviously damaged the airline industry in the Asia Pacific region significantly more than in others.

Africa sustained less damage from 9/11 and Sars, but its own struggling industry is likely to be hit hard by the European Union’s recent publication of a catalogue of unsafe airlines. This brands predominantly African airlines as falling short of European safety standards. African trade unions – most of which lack the established mechanisms of social dialogue found in other regions – now face a huge challenge in addressing these crucial safety issues together with employers and governments.

The overall picture shows general trends triggered by liberalisation and deregulation. A closer look, however, shows regional differences of an unexpected dimension. It seems as though the wolf of neo-liberalism has been wandering around the globe grabbing its prey one by one, rather than trying to conquer the planet in one go.

North America

North America accounts for 32 per cent of the world’s aviation market – the biggest regional proportion. However US unions face major challenges, with continuing battles over jobs and conditions.

In 2005, in the partly privatised air traffic control system of the US, workers were fired because they dared to speak out and complain about safety-related issues. Intervention from the ITF to support our affiliate helped to reverse the dismissals. Employers continue to attack workers’ terms and conditions, while exerting ongoing pressure for unions to give ever more concessions. As if this weren’t enough, unions are also faced with blatant union-raiding activities by “independent unions”.

Europe

Europe accounts for 30 per cent of the world’s aviation market, making it the second largest region. The recent enlargement increased the number of member states of the European Union, bringing in more countries from Eastern Europe.

In this part of Europe, unions have not been as strong as in the West. Indeed, workers have developed a rather distant attitude towards them as organisations associated with past regimes. Now the “free market” economy is becoming the model of choice, which is leading to an increase in unprotected temporary and agency labour. Jobs are moving from the more developed to the less developed parts of Europe, where workers have less or no protection and employers can take advantage of lower wages.

The European low cost carrier Ryanair has exploited this development to the full, as our ongoing campaign against its unscrupulous tactics continues to highlight.

Together with our European branch the ETF, the ITF continues to support a strong and renewed push for professionalisation and personnel licensing as one means of tackling falling labour standards in the industry. We are also working with our affiliates to fight further liberalisation of airport ground handling and to protect workers when transfers of staff take place.

Asia/Pacific

The migration of jobs from west to east is taking place not only within the EU, but on a global scale. As a result, Asia Pacific is now the fastest growing aviation market in the world. At the same time, investment in state owned companies in the region is stagnating and they are being divided up and sold.

Unlike in the more saturated US and European markets, massive growth here is taking place through call centres, private airlines, and in the low cost sector. However many of these jobs are currently non-union. The union structures that exist are often company-based rather than industry or occupation-based, and this allows non- or even anti-union carriers to establish while the unions are still adapting. This challenge has been debated at numerous regional ITF events over recent years, and will be tackled at forthcoming workshops.

Africa and Latin America >>