Member Mail 5 / 2021
Bad News: Swiss Is Shooting Itself in the Foot
The consultation process must save jobs!
Dear Colleagues
Today is the first day of the legal consultation process for mass layoffs at Swiss. This is irritating, to say the least. The new CEO Dieter Vranckx risks losing trust with the public, social partners and employees a few weeks after taking office.
Over the past months, there has been an enormous wave of solidarity with the Lufthansa subsidiary: A broad alliance has achieved governmental rescue measures amounting to billions of Swiss Francs. There has been unprecedented support through easily accessible short-term work allowances, the strive for uniform regulations with digital evidence for Covid-free flying, the employees' approval of cost-cutting crisis CLAs and their extreme flexibility.
After appeals to persevere, resting on a generous cushion of liquidity, the LH subsidiary "Swiss" dares to present a project to reduce current structures that will create deep holes far beyond the airline industry.
SEV-GATA, the ground staff’s union, which is part of SEV, the largest Swiss transport workers' union, will make use of the consultation phase to
- spread awareness among politicians about the economic importance of aviation
- to show the serious consequences for the upstream and downstream industries
- to recall the social commitment to "freezing" current structures
- to emphasise the responsibility carried by politics and the "Schweizer Luftfahrtstiftung"
- to expose the risk of losing guaranteed national assets
- to explain to Swiss what social responsibility is all about, especially after the company experienced such broad solidarity
- to demonstrate the inopportune timing of making this decision just before the introduction of digital Covid protection evidence, comprehensive vaccination measures, and further steps towards easing restrictions
- to do everything in our power to ensure that jobs are secured and employees do not miss out on the company's upswing that lies ahead. Job security shall not be jeopardised by hesitant and uninspired management for decades.
We will be committed to saving your job during the legal consultation process.
We will send out information as to when we will be on-site to talk to and accompany our members and to announce the possibilities for online consultations promptly.
SEV-GATA refuses to stand by and watch a company be ruined because of externally controlled management that only focuses on short-term success – not at the expense of hundreds of employees and not after having been rescued twice through broad solidarity in Switzerland.
We have a vision for Swiss aviation, we believe in its future, in the future of our members!
It is now more important than ever to move closer together in solidarity – to secure the upswing in Switzerland and to fight for more social justice!
We are here for you!
In solidarity,
Philipp Hadorn, President
SEV-GATA, your union in the aviation industry!
Philipp Hadorn, President GATA: SEV-Aviation
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