Portuguese airline company TAP schedules strike
It’s not great when we have to report on less than nice news related to the Algarve, but we do like to report on anything that might influence your trip there and the scheduled TAP – Portuguese airline company – strike for this month might just affect some of you.
The workers of the Portuguese airline company TAP, including pilots and cabin crew have agreed to strike between March 21 and 23 to protest against wage cuts.
The Union of Civil Aviation Pilots – SPAC – was the first to decide on striking and the remaining six airport workers’ unions decided to join them.
In the meanwhile, TAP workers protested on Monday in Largo de Camoes in Lisbon against governmental policies and carried a three-metre-wide plane ticket replica on which the name of Alvaro Santos Pereira was inscribed – the Minister for the Economy – in a not-so-thinly-veiled suggestion that he should be taking a one-way trip back to Canada, country in which he lived before being a Portuguese minister.
He is accused by the TAP workers of being responsible for the current situation of the company, which has lost some of its most qualified personnel in search of better career opportunities.
According to the union, this departure of qualified personnel will jeopardize the company in both the short and medium term by compromising passenger safety as well as the Portuguese airline’s reputation and image.
The three-day strike the week before Easter was unanimously approved at a general meeting that was held on March 1.
This has been the aftermath that followed February’s wage cuts – anywhere between 3.5% and 10% on gross salaries above 1,500 Euro per month – so as to fall in line with the Portuguese budget criteria set for 2013.
The President of TAP made an appeal for ‘common sense’ among workers because a strike at this moment will not be beneficial for the Portuguese airline’s image however, what it has to be done to send a message.
