Jul 4, 2014
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A strike of Icelandair mechanics was called off on 19 June after Parliament was recalled from summer recess in order to vote on a law banning the strike in the public interest.
A strike of Icelandair mechanics was called off on 19 June after Parliament was recalled from summer recess in order to vote on a law banning the strike in the public interest. After state mediated negotiations between Icelandair and the Air Mechanics’ Union broke down, organised a one-day strike that affected around 12,000 passengers. Ahead of the second strike day, 19 June, interior minister Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir recalled Parliament for an emergency session to ban the strike. The strike was cancelled in order to avoid the strike gag law being adopted, which would weaken the workers’ position in the future. Unions report being very worried at this third government intervention to curb strikes, pointing at the banned pilots’ strike in March and the forced postponement of the ferry workers’ strike from March to September.
English: http://icelandreview.com/news/2014/06/18/icelandair-mechanics-strike-canceled
http://grapevine.is/news/2014/06/19/air-mechanics-cancel-strike/
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.