Aviation unions in countries where the LATAM airline group operates protested in support of 70 cabin crew sacked by the company’s Chilean subsidiary, LAN.
On 5 April the LAN Cabin Crew Union (STCLA) held a demonstration at Santiago Airport, where they were joined by ITF maritime affiliates in Chile.
LAN fired 70 cabin crew from long-haul fleets based in Santiago and offered transfers to LAN Express short-haul fleets to an additional 50 cabin crew who had only recently joined LAN. Yet in the last few months, following its incorporation of new aircraft, new routes and planned increases in flight frequency, LAN had hired many new cabin crew.
STCLA president Arlette Gay Schifferli said; “We condemn these brutal and unfair dismissals, which are the result of poor management planning, based on erroneous projections and the cancellation or transfer of routes to other LATAM bases.
“Since the second half of 2012 the company was in an explosive expansion process, hiring a lot of staff, receiving more aircraft and opening new routes. The company increased the size of its cabin crew manning by 25 per cent and it now performs these dismissals for an alleged ‘sudden drop in demand’. The result is known: once again, workers are paying the costs of a merger, in this case, LATAM.”
On 4 April, ITF civil aviation secretary Gabriel Mocho wrote to LAN senior vice president human resources Emilio del Real Soto to condemn the sackings and urge the company to reinstate the workers immediately and enter into proper negotiations with STCLA. He highlighted the breakdown in trust in the merger caused by the dismissals and stated that the ITF would urgently inform the unions representing workers at LATAM Airlines Groups about LAN’s actions and advise them to take precautionary measures to avoid more redundancies in the LATAM Group.”
The merger of LAN and TAM Airlines was completed on 14 December 2011 to form LATAM Airlines Group, or LATAM.
Unions can express solidarity with the STCLA and the sacked workers by email to sindimail@terra.cl.(mailto:sindimail@terra.cl)
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