Everything is back to square one at the AUA airline: As it became known today, Tuesday evening, the company’s collective bargaining offer was rejected by the on-board staff by a clear majority in a vote that ended shortly before midnight on Monday: 90 percent of the union members entitled to vote ( only vida members were allowed to vote) were against it. Participation was 88 percent.
Now passengers are threatened with trouble again: they will probably have to prepare for further flight cancellations. Vida had already announced strikes in advance if the offer was rejected. Yesterday, union representatives and management discussed the result and how to proceed until the evening hours. “We are not ruling out any option,” said Daniel Liebhart, chairman of the aviation department at the vida union, to the OÖN: The AUA board must accept the result “for what it is”: the offer was rejected with an overwhelming majority . The AUA must stop dividing the workforce and leading them into industrial action. What is needed is an agreement on a “sensible solution,” said Liebhart, without being specific.
As reported, employers and employees have been struggling for weeks over a new collective agreement (KV): the on-board works council and the union are demanding that salaries be aligned with those of the German parent company Lufthansa, which would mean up to 40 percent more. The AUA had always pointed out that this would jeopardize the airline’s growth and future prospects.
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Deep in the red
The AUA and the Chamber of Commerce once again criticized the voting modalities: only vida members were entitled to vote. These 60 percent would decide the future of all employees.
Liebhart defended the approach and described the 60 percent as a “high level of organization: “Membership of a union also includes voting rights.”
The AUA is convinced that it has presented a good offer (eight percent more this year, five percent in each of the following two years) that already affects economic performance. According to its own statements, the AUA has had the “second worst first quarter in the company’s history”: the adjusted operating result (EBIT) amounted to minus 122 million euros. The main reasons are company meetings and strikes, booking reluctance and increased location and personnel costs. Customers are “massively unsettled” and this will have an “enormous burden” on the annual result. The damage is estimated at 36 million euros: 26 million are due to combat measures and ten million are due to missing bookings.
Since further combat measures are to be expected, intensive thought will be given to future viability.
What this meant remained unanswered when asked.
This post was updated at 8:01 p.m.
Author
Elisabeth Prechtl
Economics editor
Elisabeth Prechtl
