27/07/2013 00:00
TW
0
Staff reporter

PALMA
SOME 350 security guards at Palma airport are threatening to go on strike today and next Saturday, after the unions and the company Trablisa failed to reach an agreement over the improvement of their working conditions.

The strike was called by the CCOO, USO, UGT and CSI-CSIF unions.
They said that last Wednesday, after four hours of negotiation to try to find a solution to the complaints made by the employees, they had not reached an agreement and had found “an attitude historically typical” in the employers “who will not listen to any proposal”.

According to the unions, their committee even altered their position slightly to try to reach a “positive” agreement for both parties, “receiving the habitual reply that this is how it is”.

They also said that their committee “does not feel responsible for the inconvenience to the users of the airport, as we have tried our best to find a solution to the problems”.

The unions underlined that in this conflict, as a client of private security companies, AENA (the Spanish airports authority) “is equally responsible for the disruption caused by the exercising of a worker's constitutional right to withdraw their labour”. “Trablisa is following AENA's guidelines, and we don't understand how a private company can be controlled by outside forces”, added the union.
They insisted that the Trablisa workers at the airport have been asked to strike “so that once and for all, being an employee of the company will not mean being discriminated against by that company”.

In fact, the strike will affect the passenger controls at the airport and in other places where there is security.
One of the criticisms levelled by the unions against the company is that they have refused to put the Palma airport group on the same level as in other airports in Spain, for example the Trablisa workers in Seville airport “receive a bonus which was not negotiated in the collective bargaining procedure”.

Minimum services are expected to be in place at passengers' security checks but this weekend is the start of peak season with most schools in the UK, for exmaple, having broken up this week and much of Britain coming on holiday to Spain and the Balearics.