Spanish union calls nine-day strike for easyJet cabin crew

Spanish union USO (Unión Sindical Obrera) today announced a nine-day strike notice (1, 2, 3, 15, 16, 17, 29, 30 and 31 July) for cabin crew working for easyJet in Spain. The 450 flight attendants, based in Barcelona, Malaga and Palma de Mallorca protest against the delay of the negotiations of the second collective labour agreement. “easyjet doesn’t want to improve working conditions of their Spanish based crew members which would like to have the same working conditions as their colleagues in e.g. France or Germany,” union secretary Miguel Galán said.

With these actions, the union hopes that easyJet will present a new labour agreement to the cabin crew “that recognizes the same working conditions” as their peers in other countries. USO hopes that by issuing the strike notice, an agreement with easyJet can be quickly reached.

“Currently, easyJet cabin crew members in Spain have a base salary of €950, which is €850 less than our colleagues in France or Germany. The variable wage depends on our flight hours. Our bases are very expensive cities and with the base salary we barely cover the rent or the mortgage.”

“Spain has the lowest base salary for its crew of all easyJet bases in Europe. If you fly many hours, you pay the bills, but at the cost of reducing rest time and flying more hours,” Galán pointed out.

easyJet was quick to respond to the strike notice: “We are very disappointed with this decision at such a critical time for the industry, especially as we have already made considerable progress towards a new collective agreement. We hope that instead of going in this direction they will return to negotiations with easyJet . We would like to continue the constructive dialogue with them,” the airline explained in a statement.