Workers at airport bars threaten strike action

PALMA
THE bars and cafeterias in Palma airport could be closed on Saturday and Sunday, because of a strike by the staff of the concessionary company Areas S.A.

The strike will go ahead if the negotiations at the Balearic Arbitration and Mediation Service (Tamib), to be held tomorrow, fail to find a solution.
This was announced yesterday to the press by the Secretary General of the Federation of Commerce, Catering and Tourism for the CCOO union, Angeles Sanchez, who is taking part in the meetings with the company directors. He accused them of “blind opposition” to the unions' proposals to modify some of the agreements with the workers which date back to 1982.

Sanchez said that the “repeated rejection” of the company to alter these agreements, which he considered “obsolete” was the determining factor for the threat of a strike which, if it goes ahead, will be carried out on all weekends in the month of September, starting this coming weekend.

It appears that the conflict got worse last Friday after the parties failed to reach agreement at a meeting in Tamib between directors of Areas S.A. and union representatives, who said he didn't consider that the company was listening to the demands of the 181 affected workers, which include increasing the staff, reducing flexibility in working times and giving proper equipment to the people “who are doing higher level work”.

In addition to this, the employees of this concessionary company in 15 of the bars in the airport want improvements in the measures for the prevention of accidents at work and in the social fund for the company's employees, amongst other measures which will be discussed again tomorrow in the next meeting which is planned between the bosses and the union representatives.

The staff has called various strikes since the end of the 1990s, the last one being on June 20 2006, which were called off.
The concessionary company also manages the bars and cafeterias in Minorca airport, but these will not be affected by the dispute in Palma airport.