No rapprochement yet

The clock is ticking: Can the AUA strike still be averted?

Both sides insisted on their positions on Sunday afternoon.(Bild: APA/ROBERT JAEGER)

In the dispute over a new collective agreement for the AUA workforce, there is no rapprochement in sight. Only a last-minute agreement can prevent the threat of a 36-hour strike during the important Easter travel period - but it would come too late to avoid layoffs.

After company and employee representatives were unable to agree on a new collective agreement for flying personnel, the decision to strike followed on Saturday, which the union felt "forced" to take. This is because the company is not prepared to improve its offer. The employee representatives are demanding this just as vehemently as the employer representatives in the opposite direction.

So, for the time being, there is still a standstill, although both sides are constantly assuring that they want to hold talks. On Sunday, the two parties were in contact, but maintained their far-distant positions. A new date for talks on Monday had not been found by Sunday afternoon. 

"You can't just press a button"
From the union's point of view, an agreement could be reached by Wednesday 23:59 and 59 seconds in order to avert the strike from midnight on Maundy Thursday. However, the company does not want to inform passengers at the last minute, even if necessary. "You can't just press a button," an aviation expert told APA on Sunday. It's about rebookings and many organizational matters.

Offer "not appreciative"
In their view, the union and the works council are demanding a justifiable approximation to the salaries of AUA's parent company Lufthansa. The offer submitted by the company of an average increase of 18 percent for flying personnel - which AUA naturally presents as very lucrative - is in fact only a compensation for inflation. Furthermore, the company is only "playing" with figures and the offer is "not appreciative", criticized the responsible vida trade unionist Daniel Liebhart.

A strike by the AUA workforce would be a shot in the arm.

Günther Ofner, Luftfahrt-Obmann bei der WKO

The employers' side criticized the possible strike during the Easter vacations on Sunday as "absolutely irresponsible and a shot to the AUA workforce's own knee". "The demands of the vida trade union for a salary increase of up to 40 percent would massively jeopardize the economic basis of AUA, which has only just recovered from an existential crisis, and thus also 6,200 jobs of AUA employees," Günther Ofner, Chairman of the Aviation Trade Group in the Chamber of Commerce (WKO), said in a press release on Sunday. According to an AUA spokeswoman, the possible strike threatens 430 flights with 52,000 passengers.