Sweden - Pilots on strike after failing negotiations - June 16, 2010

From 6 June on, a number of strikes of about 2,000 pilots working for four regional Swedish airlines stalled almost all domestic flights. The Swedish Airline Pilots Association (Svensk Pilotförening - SPF) rejected the mediators' offer and a final attempt to resolve the conflict failed. At the heart of the conflict is the issue of the airlines' right to hire pilots through temporary agencies. On this behalf, employers have called for changes in existing collective agreements, with according to the union a negative impact on pay of existing employees. “The offer cuts pilot pay by 15-20% and at the same time increases working hours from 40 to 47.5 hours a week,” SPF wrote in a statement. By June 16, Spirit Airlines, one of the four employers involved, had made a deal with their workers, but tensions remained with the other three.

http://www.thelocal.se/27072/20100607/ 

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.