Higher Profits and Layoffs Just Like Lufthansa? - SEV-GATA Demands Swissness from Swiss
Lufthansa has announced plans to cut around 4,000 administrative jobs by 2030. It remains unclear how the subsidiary Swiss will be affected. “Job cuts in Switzerland at a time of record profits would be a no-go,” says Philipp Hadorn, President of SEV-GATA.
“Announcing cutbacks while at the same time forecasting extremely high profits for investors comes across as decadent and is an affront to staff,” Hadorn continues. Job cuts are always problematic for those affected. Where downsizing is genuinely necessary and feasible, social standards must be respected, and it must be ensured that those who remain are not overwhelmed with additional burdens. Swiss is already very well and leanly structured. Therefore, it should not be affected by job cuts – even if certain costs in Switzerland are presumably higher than elsewhere. Past reorganisation and centralisation efforts within the LH Group have consistently shown that Swiss remains competitive thanks to quality and efficiency. It is crucial that Swiss positions itself within the LH Group with its highly skilled workforce. Lufthansa would be well advised to continue making use of Swiss employees’ expertise across the group rather than risking the loss of such valuable staff.
For SEV-GATA, it goes without saying that the responsible trade unions must be informed in advance of any potential downsizing plans at Swiss – which has not happened so far. However, during a visit to SEV-GATA in Bern last Thursday, Swiss CEO Jens Fehlinger suggested that he was not particularly worried about the number of employees in Switzerland. SEV-GATA therefore expects that Swiss staff will not, or hardly, be affected by LH’s downsizing plans – or that they will at least be able to contribute their expertise in any new LH structures.
“What does worry us greatly is the ongoing centralisation within the LH Group, as this puts Swiss – which, after the Swissair grounding, was also founded and secured with state funds and later handed over cheaply to LH as a cash cow – at risk of losing its influence on international connections. Yet these are of great importance for Switzerland as a business location, for the economy as a whole, and of course also for jobs in the country,” Hadorn adds. “Lufthansa has a responsibility to stand for ‘Swissness’ at Swiss.”