10 August 2010

Air traffic controllers at the state-run Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (AENA) have voted 98 percent in favour of industrial action against a ferocious assault by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) government of Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero.
However, even before the ballot, the air traffic controllers union (USCA) is seeking to restrict the struggle in advance to a series of token strikes and provide AENA with a 10-day advance notice of dates.
In February the government imposed by decree a 40 percent wage cut on the controllers. According to reports it is now imposing an increase in yearly hours’ commitment from 1,000 to 1,600 and, despite rising levels of illness, a reduction in rest periods.
Recently, government officials accused controllers on sick leave of organising an illegal strike. Development Minister José Blanco threatened to fire the staff, off sick from work due to severe stress and exhaustion, who refused to return to work after he ordered fresh drumhead medical exams. Blanco threatened, “If claims are false then they are breaking the law, which means we can take legal action that may result in them losing their jobs”. According to USCA, workers with serious medical conditions are being pressured, some on tranquilizers, back to work with transport organised by AENA.
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