Media News, 1st december 2009
SEV-GATA comments on change of Swiss staff management
Pending problems are waiting for Reto Schmid
New Swiss staff manager Reto Schmid is not coming into an easy inheritance. “The working conditions of ground staff are very difficult, and a pay rise has been long overdue”, says SEV-GATA president Philipp Hadorn. In addition a wage system, safeguarding transparency and equal treatment is still missing
In summer 2004 Kurt Renggli, former Swiss staff manager, had promised ground staff union SEV-GATA to pay back the concessions made by the employed to the crisis-shaken Swiss as soon as the „turn around“ would have been achieved. If Swiss did not keep its promise – after the unions had voluntarily adjusted their current collective labour agreement – the only logical step left for him was to resign. End September 2004 Renggli left Swiss.
In 2005 Antonio Schulthess succeeded him as Swiss personnel manager. Pending problems were mostly denied and new CLA talks turned out to be difficult. Whenever the union representatives took up their activities, their leaders were threatened with legal action. Only after an additional person was put in charge by Swiss to deal with the unions, the relationship between the two social partners returned to normal.
With Reto Schmidt on top of human resources SEV-GATA expects that the promised „pay-back“ to ground staff will now be negotiated and a transparent and calculable wage system with up-to-date wages will be worked out with SEV-GATA.
SEV-GATA (Groundstaff Aviation Technics and Administration) is the aviation department of the transport staff union SEV.