Summary
- Italy-based Wizz Air Malta pilots and flight attendants plan a four-hour strike on May 28.
- The union’s demands include a collective labor agreement (CLA) and fairer working conditions.
- Wizz Air has had an extended history of conflicts with employees who’ve attempted to unionize, including lawsuits in Romania.
With a planned four-hour strike motion, Italy-based Wizz Air pilots, represented by the Italian Transport Federation-Italian Confederation of Employees’ Unions (Federazione Italiana Trasporti-Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, FIT-CISL) union, are demanding higher working conditions from the low-cost carrier.
Affecting Wizz Air’s Italian operations
In accordance with strike information provided by the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti, MIT), the crews employed by Wizz Air Malta will strike on May 28, 2024. The four-hour strike motion will affect all flights departing Italy between 13:00 and 17:00 local time (UTC +2).
In a notice to the Italian Ministry of Labor and Social Policies (Ministero del lavoro e delle politiche sociali, MLPS), in addition to Wizz Air Malta, FIT-CISL informed that every one crew members employed by the low-cost carrier’s Maltese subsidiary would go on the four-hour strike.
Photo: Airbus
Data from the aviation analytics company Cirium showed that in May, Wizz Air Malta has scheduled departures from 23 airports in Italy, totaling 758 weekly departures through the month. The highest three busiest airports are Rome Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino Airport (FCO, 243 weekly departures), Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP, 103 weekly departures), and Milan Bergamo Orio al Serio International Airport (BGY, 71 weekly departures).
The union has identified 4 conflict areas with Wizz Air: the violation of laws regulating occupational health and safety, equal opportunities between men and ladies, information and consultation of employees, and the protection and support of maternity and paternity.
FIT-CISL identified that it requested an urgent meeting with Wizz Air on March 28 to resolve the problems. Nonetheless, the meeting didn’t occur, and the union continued to escalate the problem. While the 2 sides eventually met, the follow-up meeting didn’t resolve their issues.
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Recognizing the fitting to affix a union
Meanwhile, Diarmuid O’Conghaile, the managing director of Wizz Air Malta, addressed the corporate’s employees concerning the strike. He began his message, which Easy Flying saw, by saying that the airline emerged from the pandemic growing more strongly than another airline in Europe. Wizz Air has provided the next statement to Easy Flying:
Photo: Dizfoto | Shutterstock
O’Conghaile continued that while the airline has encountered operational issues, it has fixed these problems, making Wizz Air one in every of the best-performing airlines within the continent, adding that it has managed to achieve this with the assistance of its crew members.
The Irish executive noted that the airline was not against unions but that Wizz Air believed dealing directly with the workers’ issues could be the better option. The managing director added that this is able to deliver higher results for the crew. O’Conghaile stated that pilots could turn up at their respective bases and lift the problem directly with the airline’s C-level executives, noting that this doesn’t occur at other airlines.
O’Conghaile admitted that Wizz Air won’t get all the things right the primary time, adding that the carrier listens to its people and tries to know the issues that the workers face. In accordance with the chief, that was how the airline plans to deliver an answer that works for each side.
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Demands for a collective labor agreement
In a FIT-CISL memo sent to its employees, which was seen by Easy Flying, the union detailed that every one pilots and flight attendants could attend the strike, and union membership was not mandatory. Nonetheless, FIT-CISL emphasized that the participants of the labor motion have to respect the remainder days, shifts, minimum transit, and rest times, strictly adhering to their contracts.
In a draft statement, which was seen by Easy Flying, the union detailed the issues that they need to lift with Wizz Air. Firstly, FIT-CISL members demanded a collective labor agreement (CLA) to make sure their rights and protections for all employees. In accordance with the union, the airline can change the salary components on a whim and without negotiating with the workers.
Photo:Â Antonello Marangi | Shutterstock
The union also noted that despite the airline’s success – with the carrier ending FY2024 with a net profit of €365.9 million ($397 million) – the crew members’ salaries have remained stagnant. In consequence, the union’s members demand that the airline align the pay with inflation.
O’Conghaile said that Wizz Air would pay an all-employee bonus to all in July even when the corporate had not reached its financial goals. The airline’s FY2024 report detailed that its labor costs increased by 35.8% year-on-year (YoY), reflecting the airline hiring more people (16.4% YoY), higher aircraft utilization, and cost-of-living adjustments to salaries YoY.
Photo:Â Ceri Breeze | Shutterstock
In accordance with FIT-CISL, the airline’s current policies don’t provide sufficient guarantees for pregnant women. In consequence, the labor collective has demanded that Wizz Air improve maternity leave policies, which include job protection and the introduction of specific support measures for moms returning to work.
Other issues include roster stability, access to industry pension funds, and access to category-specific insurance, ensuring the long-term financial stability and emotional well-being of pilots and flight attendants. FIT-CISL concluded that its goal is to make sure fairer, more dignified, and safer working conditions for Wizz Air Malta’s employees.
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Pay dispute
In the identical message, O’Conghaile stated that Wizz Air’s ultra-low-cost carrier business model has allowed, amongst other things, to deliver pay improvements, including the recent salary changes in Italy. Nonetheless, the union contended that the brand new salary package would actually penalize its employees.
FIT-CISL issued an announcement on April 4, detailing its disappointment that the airline decided to implement the brand new salary package, significantly degrading the social security a part of the flight crews’ contracts. In accordance with the union, while it recognized the quantity of investment that Wizz Air has made in Italy, the expansion has to go hand in hand with higher working conditions for its employees, including pilots and flight attendants.
Photo:Â Wizz Air
In a memo that FIT-CISL sent to its members shortly after the changes were announced, which Easy Flying saw, the union blasted the airline for refusing to collaborate, adding that its management had declined to handle the issues raised by employees.
The union identified that while the online pay has grown barely, the reduced pension contributions have resulted in an overall lack of earnings. FIT-CISL highlighted that its members were now more exposed to potential disputes, especially if employees did not pay their income tax on time.
As such, the labor collective said it was improper to show its employees without the protections of a CLA and official guarantees of assistance during potential disputes. FIT-CISL identified that Wizz Air only mentioned offering legal support ambiguously.
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Ignoring employees’ rights
In an announcement to Easy Flying, Mircea Constantin, the Secretary General of FPU Romania, said that employees’ concerns that were apparent in Eastern Europe have now reached the airline’s Italian colleagues with the most recent labor dispute.
FPU Romania was founded by the Denmark-based Flight Personnel Union (Flyvebranchen Personale Union, FPU) in 2020. In accordance with Constantin, the union, an official branch of FPU, was established to assist Eastern Europe-based crews unionize, guarantee fair working conditions, and preserve a culture of flight safety inside airlines operating from the region.
Photo: Tupungato | Shutterstock
In April 2021, FPU Romania announced that the Romanian courts mandated Wizz Air to rehire 4 pilots and ten flight attendants, which it fired in April 2020. Then, the carrier argued that it did so as a consequence of the pandemic, yet the union said that the staff were dismissed illegally.
In a follow-up case, a number of the illegally dismissed Italian pilots working at Wizz Air’s Romanian bases filed a grievance with the Romanian National Council for Combating Discrimination (Consiliul NaÈ›ional pentru Combaterea Discriminării, CNCD). The CNCD concluded that the low-cost carrier didn’t establish transparent criteria when choosing the pilots who were about to be let go from their jobs.
Concerned pilots in the USA
In an announcement on December 15, 2020, FPU Romania said that in 2014, Wizz Air fired 19 employees after that they had arrange a union. In 2015, the CNCD concluded that the dismissals were illegal and discriminatory, with the council concluding that officially communicating against the establishment of a union and terminating contracts of employees who joined the union was unjust.
Photo: Wizz Air
When Wizz Air applied for an Economic Authority for Initial Foreign Air Carrier permit within the US in January 2022, the Department of Transportation (DOT) rejected the airline’s application. The Department cited the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) statement, which said it couldn’t determine whether Wizz Air’s safety oversight was enough to grant the applying to the Hungarian low-cost carrier.
Nonetheless, several US-based unions, including the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), International Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), Allied Pilots Association (APA), Independent Pilots Association (IPA), Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO (AFA), and the Transportation Trades Department AFL-CIO (TTD) expressed concerns concerning the application and Wizz Air itself.
Photo: Cristi Croitoru | Shutterstock
ALPA began its filing by alleging that Wizz Air prided itself on a zero-tolerance policy of unions, including public assaults, retaliatory terminations, and refusals to comply with court orders to reinstate illegally fired employees.
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Investors’ concerns
In December 2021, a bunch of investors expressed concerns about Wizz Air’s treatment of its employees, especially the fitting to form unions. One in all the investors, AkademikerPension, a Denmark-based pension fund, eventually pulled its investment from the low-cost carrier listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
Photo: Tom Boon | Easy Flying
In an announcement issued in February 2022, AkademikerPension explained that investigations have concluded that Wizz Air’s management has repeatedly refused to acknowledge unions in Romania, Ukraine, Norway, and Italy.
The pension fund added that while the airline met with investors, it declined to vary its view towards unions. In consequence, AkademikerPension sold the airline’s shares value as much as DKK22 million ($3.1 million).
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