KLM Ground Staff to Resume Strike Next Week, Union Says
KLM Ground Staff to Resume Strike Next Week, Union Says
(Bloomberg) -- Air France-KLM’s Dutch arm will face a four-hour strike at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, one of Europe’s busiest travel hubs, after negotiations over a salary increase for ground staff broke down, the FNV union said in a statement on its website.
“KLM continues to refuse to come to a good collective labor agreement for ground staff. They leave their own employees in the cold,” FNV union leader Jan van den Brink said.
KLM isn’t the only carrier fighting it out with its staff. British Airways last week was forced to cancel dozens of flights as it wrestled with the fallout from a two-day pilot strike. The walkout impacted travel plans for close to 200,000 people and cost the airline 40 million pounds ($50 million) a day based on its own estimates.
The scheduled strike at KLM follows two walkouts that disrupted hundreds of flights. The date of the planned strike hasn’t been set and will be announced at least 48 hours in advance, the union said.
Months of talks between the union and management over a new labor agreement have failed to produce a deal. KLM’s 15,000 ground staff are seeking a 4% pay increase, more fixed contracts and more favorable shift patterns, FNV said. Almost 80 million passengers pass through Schiphol each year and it’s a major center for transfers between intercontinental and regional flights.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ellen Proper in Amsterdam at eproper@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Andrew Davis, Sara Marley
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