Commenting on this week’s warning actions by workers of the LATAM airline across Latin America, ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) civil aviation secretary Gabriel Mocho said: “A World Cup warning has been well and truly sounded. This week’s actions are a push for fairness across the airline and a taste of what could happen in the World Cup if serious inequalities are not addressed.”
He continued: “Under the slogan ‘We are all LAN Peru’, LATAM workers have been expressing their support for their colleagues in Peru, where a strike next week has now become much more likely, following the management’s refusal to remedy dramatic inequalities of pay. Meanwhile in Argentina unions are struggling for a decent collective bargaining agreement.
“Last month the ITF network of LATAM unions warned the company that a failure to restart pay negotiations, stalled since late 2013, with Peruvian unions, could result in industrial action and cause flight delays or cancellations during the tournament.”
Mocho continued: “The core of the problem is the fact that LATAM is paying mechanics working for LAN Peru around half of those employed by them to do the same job in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. The 55,000 workers across the group want to see this injustice brought to an end.”
He concluded: “LATAM workers don’t want to strike during the World Cup but they have had enough. The ball is now in the company’s court. If they won’t listen to us maybe they’ll listen to the sound of their share price falling and the questions put by passengers about what’s going to happen during the tournament. Because if the company’s regional management continues to refuse to engage in direct talks with the unions, the workers feel they have little choice but to take industrial action.”
Regional aviation giant LATAM is the result of the merger in 2012 of LAN, the Chilean flag carrier, and TAM, Brazil’s biggest airline. The group operates in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru, and is represented by TAM in Brazil.
The Facebook page for the ITF LATAM network is: www.facebook.com/pages/Latam-Network-ITF/311133405678274
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More information Further background information is contained in this press release from the ITF LATAM network:
For Immediate Release June 4, 2014
LATAM Airlines Refuses to Settle Worker Disputes in Peru and Argentina Despite Negotiating in Brazil Warnings of Flight Cancellations and Delays Continue into World Cup
• LATAM Airlines refuses to discuss the injustices workers in Argentina and Peru are facing, despite negotiating with workers in Brazil today.
• Without an agreement in Argentina, Peru and Brazil, strikes, work actions and mobilizations will continue throughout Latin America during the times when World Cup air traffic is at its highest point.
• LAN Peru has become a strategic hub for LATAM airlines, with an increased number of national and international flights. With the new hangar in Lima, LAN Peru has been converted into a maintenance center for the region. Argentina is one of the major hubs for flights into Brazil.
Until the company resolves its problems in Peru and Argentina, Latin American aviation workers will continue to keep passengers informed about LAN and TAM Airline delays and cancellations at airports in Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, and Paraguay and using social media.
LAN Peru workers are paid have of what workers in the rest of the company are paid for doing the same work and have been 10 years without a salary increase. The Argentinean flight attendants have been years without a collective work agreement because the company has been attempting to support a “yellow” union, a union that was created by the company itself in order to avoid the necessary legal agreement with the flight attendants.
Passengers and players have the right to know that their flights may be delayed due to the inability of the company to provide a stable working environment.
For more information contact Dina Feller, Coordinator of the ITF Network of LATAM Unions, +54 911 63030725
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For more information contact ITF press officer, Sam Dawson.
Direct line: + 44 (0)20 7940 9260. Email: dawson_sam@itf.org.uk
International Transport Workers' Federation - ITF: HEAD OFFICE ITF House, 49 - 60 Borough Road, London SE1 1DS
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7403 2733
Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7375 7871
Email: mail@itf.org.uk
Web: www.itfglobal.org
