As we reported earlier, the collective labor agreement negotiations are extremely difficult. Two consultation days were also planned this week. After the first day, however, we decided that there is no point in talking further about land-specific topics at the moment. The consultation that was scheduled for today will therefore not take place.

The biggest obstacle at the moment is that De Unie and KLM completely disagree about the new collective labor agreement. KLM wants to put the brakes on wage development (zero line) and is mainly looking for productivity improvements. If it is up to KLM, this will be at the expense of employment and the collective labor agreement at Land. There is also little or no willingness at KLM to really enter into discussions about the modernization of the IPB scheme.

A lot of work is being done in the ground domain (high workload), and the inability to use KLM’s full capacity is mainly due to the shortage of pilots. This has a significant negative impact on KLM’s result. Nevertheless, we understand the situation at KLM and we also understand that the ambitious and necessary investments (especially in the fleet) require better results. Increasing earning capacity, reducing absenteeism, reconsidering investments, and so on, is fine with us. But we do not accept a deterioration of the working conditions at Grond. We want ‘normal’ collective labor agreements.

Poll results

The results of the short poll recently held by De Unie about KLM’s flexibility proposals also show once again that there is no support for KLM’s proposals. The comments on the questions were also often ‘very clear’. Among employees who work shifts are:

• 88% against shortening the notice of the R-service from 4 to 1 day.
• 82% against lifting the restrictions on the use of the R-service.
• 82% against 4×10 hours of night shift.
• 68% against the use of KV in all services.
• 60% against the R-shift from the basic schedule.
• 60% against super early 8 hour shifts.
• 54% against increasing KV from 32 to 50 hours.
  

What next?

The collective labor agreement consultations within the Cabin Domain have yet to start next week. The collective labor agreement consultation has not yet started at the Vliegers either. They have been working for months to try to reach an agreement on ‘running’ the summer operation of 2025.

That is why we have decided to first discuss the situation further – with the executives, among others. There are also no more consultation dates planned for this year. However, consultation dates are scheduled at the end of January 2025 to continue discussions with KLM in a multi-context (with all unions from all domains) on all joint topics, such as the wage margin.

So much for this message. We realize that it is not a happy message. Of course, as always, we will keep you informed of the sequel.

Do you want to respond? Then send a message to huug.brinkers@unie.nl.