Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Spanish Airport Workers Go on Strike

Workers at Ryanair airlines and at easyJet are on strike, demanding their rights in the workplace.

Facebook Twitter Share
© European Cockpit Association (ECA)

Amid a global airline crisis, Spanish airline workers are on strike for almost 2 weeks.

Workers at Ryanair airlines, along with the unions Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) and Sindicato Independiente de Tripulantes de Tripulantes de Cabina de Pasajeros de Líneas Aéreas (SITCPLA), have gone on strike and plan to stay on strike until July 28. Nearly 450 easyJet cabin crew were called to strike over the weekend, as well as several dates over the next month.

The strike was called because there is no collective-bargaining agreement with the company. For several months, the agreement was being negotiated, but then the company left the negotiating table. The workers are demanding 22 vacation days and the application of occupational risk prevention regulations.

Further, Ryanair forces its flight attendants to open bank accounts in Ireland to receive their salary and to pay taxes in that country. Despite living and working in Spain, they don’t have access to Spanish healthcare.

According to the union USO, “Ryanair has again committed all kinds of illegalities during this strike: more workers on duty than a normal day, threats, coercion, scabbing between bases offering to pay three-hour cabs and even international scabbing, bringing Portuguese, Italian and also non-EU crew members, from Morocco or the United Kingdom, violating the right to strike.”

The employers have even gone so far as to impose fraudulent penalties against workers who joined the strike, inventing minimum service notifications that never reached the crew members. There are currently 50 workers summoned to disciplinary meetings.

For its part, the easyJet staff have been denouncing the company’s low salaries, which do not even reach the minimum wage.

The government’s has responded by demanding minimum services to both easyJet and Ryanair staff. They demand that airline workers maintain 67 percent and 80 percent of their staff working, which the union describes as abusive and illegal for violating the right to strike. In 2018 the Ministry of Public Works imposed during the Ryanair strike minimum services of 100 percent for domestic flights between the Peninsula and the islands, 59 percent on international flights, and 35 percent and 59 percent between peninsular cities.

Although governments often deny workers the right to strike, even governments that claim to be progressive, this ends up being especially strong in the transport and airline sector.

In 2010, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s government militarized air traffic control, declaring a state of emergency before the air traffic controllers’ strike, with harsh penalties for 131 strikers, who ended up having to compensate the company AENA more than 13 million euros.

Despite all these difficulties, 40 percent of the Ryanair crew is on strike, resulting in 215 cancellations and 1,255 delays. At easyJet, this led to 26 cancellations and 185 delays. easyJet has convened negotiations for July 6 and 7. In the face of these advances, the workers remain neither passive nor naive, and they do not plan to end the strike until management responds to their demands.

Conflicts within the European airport sector are beginning to be felt more and more acutely. Workers at airlines such as Lufthansa, British Airways, and Air France have joined this struggle, and for several weeks now we have been witnessing strikes and all kinds of mobilizations. This comes after a massive strike by transport workers in England, as well as discussions of a railroad workers’ strike in France. This tenacity must be an example, and we must fight with organization so that it can be maintained and can spread to the rest of the sectors of the working class.

Facebook Twitter Share

La Izquierda Diario Argentina

Our Argentinian sister site, part of the international network of La Izquierda Diario

Labor Movement

A banner reads "Real Wages Or We Strike" at a rally for CUNY, which is experiencing cuts from Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul.

CUNY Faculty and Staff Have Gone One Year Without a Contract — It’s Time to Strike

CUNY workers have been without a new contract for a full year and the university has yet to make any economic offers. It's time to take action.

Olivia Wood

February 29, 2024
Florida governor Ron DeSantis stands at a podium that reds "Higher Education Reform"

U.S. Higher Education Is Being Gutted, but We Can Fight Back

Across the United States, higher education is being gutted through program eliminations and budget cuts. We must prepare to fight these attacks with everything we have.

Olivia Wood

February 28, 2024
CUNY workers at a demonstration hold a banner that reads "STRIKE TO SAVE CUNY."

CUNY Workers Launch New Strike Campaign

As Governor Hochul proposes another $528 million in cuts, workers at the City University of New York are fighting back.

Olivia Wood

February 12, 2024
With the U.S Capitol in the background, demonstrators rally during the March on Washington for Gaza at Freedom Plaza in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024.

AFL-CIO’s Ceasefire Call Shows Power of the Movement for Palestine

The AFL-CIO has called for a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. The labor movement must go further for Palestinian liberation and break with the bipartisan regime.

Otto Fors

February 11, 2024

MOST RECENT

Former president Donald Trump standing at a podium in front of American flags.

To Stop Trump, We Need Much More Democracy, Not Less

Democrats have been trying to kick Trump off the ballot as an "insurrectionist." Liberals say we have to restrict democracy in order to save it. As socialists, we think they have it backwards: to beat the Far Right, we need a mass movement fighting for radical democracy.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 18, 2024

Declaration: End Imperialist Intervention in Haiti, Solidarity with the Haitian People

The “Multinational Security Support Mission” announced by the United States marks a new imperialist-colonial intervention in Haiti by the United States, the UN, and their allies.

“Poor Things” Floats Like a Butterfly and Stings Like a Butterfly

Poor Things is a fantastical comedy with beautiful set design and costumes and an Oscar-winning performance from Emma Stone. So why did it leave me feeling so empty? Despite juggling feminist and socialist ideas, the film is ideologically muddled and often self-contradictory.

Basil Rozlaban

March 16, 2024

New Jersey Democrats Attack the Public’s Right to Government Records

The New Jersey state assembly, led by the Democratic Party, just tried to fast-track a bill that would have gutted the Open Public Records Act. This is a reminder that their party is an obstacle, not an ally, in the fight to preserve democracy.

Samuel Karlin

March 15, 2024