After months of negotiations between ATHEPSA and the state company EANA, after compulsory conciliations and more than 50 layoffs, this Friday they would initiate force measures in claim for the loss of wages, for the reinstatement of the fired workers and for working conditions. It should be noted that these measures were voted in assemblies in which more than 400 workers participated and that they arrive after the company authorities and the officials of the transport area have denied each and every one of the claims made by the union.
To put in context, the National Government through the Ministry of Transportation decided to freeze the salaries of the sector 10 months ago, being the company Eana has a surplus and self -definance. The serious thing of the situation is not only the attack on the salary of the personnel, but this reality attempts against operational security and therefore against all users of air transport.
This is because hundreds of workers have been forced to complement their income doing other jobs outside working hours. Plurimpleus is also a reality between aerial controllers.
How does it affect operational security? The activity of those who perform air navigation services is regulated by international rules that require a work limit to avoid fatigue, since it is a task that requires adequate and absolute concentration rest, being one of the most stressful. Like the pilots, in the workers of the sector the safety of thousands of passengers and crew every day is placed.
Salary delay, loss of purchasing power not only affects workers in the sector but also those who are transported by the country’s airspace every day.
The official media that oppose any union measure regardless of what is behind, aligned with the national government, once again, with the aim of attacking the workers. As we have heard on other occasions, they are placed in “spokesmen” of users, of the people who are going to be affected by the measures during the winter holidays, with the sole objective of discrediting the collective’s claim. They are the same as in the 90s applauded the deregulations and privatizations that ended up generating serious damages to the operational safety of the air industry that resulted in tragic “accidents”. These means do not look at the null investment in operational security, the obsolescence of equipment and radars, but in the search for arguments to attack the workers.
But in addition, if there is a responsible for the union measures to arrive during the course of the winter holidays it is the government itself and the authorities of the EANA, since the negotiations and the possibility of the affectation of the service exists since March but never responded. But the media do not stay there, not only do they take refuge behind users to launch their attacks, but seek to link these measures to an electoral political objective by the guild, which reached the absurd in an interview in TN where a journalist asked the general secretary of ATEPSA, Paola Barrita, if his referent is Myriam Bregman.
This Friday the freedom is put into play to exercise the right to strike
The Government and the Media campaign aims to discredit the just claim of the workers, to face laborers with users of the service. This is not new, it is part of the government’s plan and the IMF so that the deep social crisis that the country is going through is discharged over the working people while a handful of entrepreneurs swelle their profits. They are the “heroes” and retirees, dismissed workers, nurses of the claw, scientists and university teachers among others are “La Casta”. This operation is not new, but what is at stake in this conflict is the freedom to exercise the right to strike.
For those who do not know, the air traffic service is within the so -called “essential services” and the exercise of the right to strike is governed by Decree 272/2006. Under these limits that involve guaranteeing health flights, of the different Argentine state authorities in addition to guaranteeing a minimum of the service, the workers in the sector have carried out multiple union measures. But now the government and authorities of Eana intend to ignore that minimum right covered in the Constitution and other international norms.
Throughout the official negotiations between representatives of Atepsa, Eana and the Government, the authorities have refused to recognize this right being that all the legal steps and several arbitrary impositions have been respected. To make it concrete, being two days after the start of the measures announced by ATHEPSA, the EANA company that has the obligation to publish the schedule of measures has not done so. The company’s attitude guarantees that the measures generate more impact, that airlines cannot reschedule flights without an official announcement. But behind this the policy of attacking the workers is hidden by declaring union actions illegal. That is why this basic right is at stake this Friday.
The “forces of heaven” are the strength of those who day by day guarantee the functioning of a complex system governed by hundreds of international regulations, permanent demands in training in exchange for low wages and increase in labor precariousness. But the workers of air navigation services are not alone. As we said, there were hundreds of workers who voted in assembly the measures, but also have the support of pilots and land personnel. Behind the start of the measures planned for this Friday there will be thousands of aeronautical labores supporting this struggle for salary recomposition, the reinstatement of the workers dismissed and for the legitimate right to exercise the strike, which has to be a step to defeat this brutal adjustment plan.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
