The pilots and cabin crew of Discover, Holiday airline of the Lufthansa Grouphave announced a four-day strike starting at 00:00 (CET) on Tuesday 27 August and lasting until 23:59 on Friday 30 August.
The industrial action affects all Discover the airlines for flights departing from German airports and is the result of the lack of agreement with the unions VC (pilots) and UFO (CC) in the negotiations on new collective agreements with Verdi, another pilots and CC union, the conditions of which are not acceptable to the first two.
“The management of Discover the airlineswhich has been refusing to accept collective agreements through the majority cabin crew union UFO for years, made a strike inevitable at the beginning of the year. Now this management is forcing UFO into industrial action again. “In a sudden and nighttime action, a collective agreement was hastily negotiated with another union that contains conditions that are unacceptable to our members, while Discover’s management refuses to continue negotiations with UFO,” said Joachim Vázquez Bürger, President of UFO.
See also: Discover Airlines expands aircraft capacity and modernizes cabin for long-haul flights
“After years of stagnation, our colleagues are now – completely unexpectedly and suddenly – confronted with not only inadequate, but also unprecedentedly antisocial, in some cases unbearable conditions. The fact that key salary components are linked to union membership favored by the employer is highly questionable. But the fact that people are prepared to abuse job security for a membership program reminiscent of mobile phone providers, under the premise that ‘those who don’t join in will be fired more quickly’, leaves us speechless. Unfortunately, the employer has left us no choice but to plunge into industrial action,” adds Harry Jaeger, Head of Collective Bargaining Policy.
The airline subsequently condemned this industrial action and stressed that the agreement reached with Verdi guarantees wage increases of up to 38 percent for CC and up to 16 percent for pilots.
The impact of the Discover strike
According to information received by Aviacionline via Cirium this week Discover has scheduled 248 flights from its airports in Germany, so the industrial action could affect around 50,000 passengers (plus a similar number on return flights).
From the main locations in Frankfurt and Munich Discover the airlines flies to around 40 destinations in Europe, Africa, North America and the Caribbean.
Its fleet consists of 14 Airbus A320, 3 Airbus A330-200 and 10 Airbus A330-300.
