LABOUR-ARGENTINA: Aerolineas Crisis Brewing 10 Years, Say Unions

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 31 2001 (IPS) - The crisis afflicting Aerolíneas Argentinas reached a tension-filled peak Wednesday when the government failed in its negotiations with the Spanish holding firm that owns the airline, triggering protests in the offices and on the runways of the capital’s airports.

The Argentine labour movement is hard pressed to remember a protest like the one being led by the unions of the 6,800 Aerolíneas Argentinas employees. They have prevented the departure of flights of the Spanish airline Iberia, and for the last 22 days have occupied the Aerolíneas offices.

“For the first time, the passengers – instead of complaining – are supporting us,” said a pleasantly surprised Aerolíneas employee as she worked at an airport check-in desk.

The unions believe that for many Argentines, the flagship airline remains a national symbol – despite being privatised 10 years ago – and they do not want to see it go bankrupt.

Public backing was evident on local talk-radio programmes as callers launched an appeal to boycott all products and services of companies from Spain, the leading foreign investor in Argentina.

“Quit using Telefónica (of Spain) and use Telecom (of France) instead,” one caller suggested. “We will no longer buy Repsol- YPF gasoline,” said another.

The two-hour takeover of a runway Tuesday at Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, the domestic-flight airport in Buenos Aires, was a milestone for the airline’s labour unions.

Pilots and flight attendants, usually hesitant to actively participate in past protests, this time tussled with police and forced their way onto the runway.

Later, faced with the threat that the police would begin to use force to comply with the Justice Ministry’s order to clear the area, the workers – some of whom earn monthly salaries of several thousand dollars – left the runway in a column, wrapped in the Argentine flag and singing the national anthem.

“What bothers me most is not the blow I received, but what they are doing to the company,” said one pilot who had been struck by an airport police agent.

Worker protests at Ezeiza international airport were limited to the terminal as the police beefed up their presence to prevent them from reaching the tarmac.

The allegiance some employees show towards the firm can be understood by the fact that many represent the third generation of families who have worked for the airline for decades.

Labour Minister Patricia Bullrich returned Wednesday from Spain, and, like the administrators of the Spanish state-owned holding firm, accused one of the Aerolíneas Argentinas unions of rejecting flexible labour contracts that would allegedly permit them to obtain the financing needed to keep the flights operating.

“In a closed and irresponsible attitude, the mechanics of APTA (Association of Aeronautical Technicians) have put the company in an extremely serious situation by not agreeing to adjust work conditions, as the other unions have done, and as the firm requests,” stated Bullrich.

The same criticism was voiced from Madrid by Pedro Ferreras, director of the Spanish holding company, SEPI, blaming the mechanics for the failed efforts over the weekend to avoid closing the airline that already owes its workers two months’ salary.

Bullrich and Ferreras explained that SEPI was going to ask its board for 350 million dollars in capital for Aerolíneas Argentinas, but the request depends on getting the green light from each of the airline’s five unions, without exception.

Rubén Cirielli, APTA spokesman, said the mechanics had rejected the proposal because it implied layoffs, salary cuts and extended work shifts, and did not guarantee that the company would keep its doors open if these conditions were accepted.

Cirielli, who participated in the Madrid negotiations, commented that the Argentine government had accepted the first set of conditions, which involved a reduction in airport taxes, the liberalisation of airport services and the loosening of security regulations, but had obtained nothing in return.

“What’s more, the president (Fernando de la Rúa) emitted a decree before this trip so that the Spanish companies would receive better conditions for participating in an infrastructure plan that will mobilise investments of 11 billion dollars, and the minister (Bullrich) did not wield that argument in the negotiations,” explained the unionist.

Cirielli was referring to a decree which provoked the ire of the Argentine companies that are first in line for participation in the announced infrastructure plan. The resolution was approved Friday so that the minister could present it in Madrid, but SEPI subsequently altered its request.

He also pointed out the Venezuelan airline Viasa, which – like Aerolíneas Argentinas – was acquired by Iberia, went bankrupt in 1997 despite the fact that the trade unions had agreed to the proposed labour conditions in a desperate final bid to keep their jobs.

“They laid the same trap for the Viasa workers to provoke infighting between the airline’s unions,” said Cirielli, alluding to the fact that the mechanics are feeling the heat from the four other Aerolíneas syndicates to resolve the crisis.

The unionist, who had flown to Madrid on an Aerolíneas flight, seated in first-class like minister Bullrich, returned to Buenos Aires Wednesday on the same plane, but relegated to tourist class.

Oscar Cardoso, a radio host specialised in international affairs, commented Wednesday that the case of the Argentine airline is a typical conflict of the globalisation process.

“The workers are mobilising in Argentina to defend their sources of employment, their representative is in Spain and the Argentine government is looking the other way,” commented Cardoso, summing up a problem that dates back to the sale of the state-run Aerolíneas Argentinas in 1991, under the Carlos Menem administration (1989-1999).

The company, which at the time operated efficiently and at a profit, was transferred debt-free to Spain’s state-run Iberia, following a much-questioned bidding process that came under fire from the unions and from a lower-court judge who had accepted a petition for the airline’s legal protection filed by a legislator.

But the Supreme Court, in an unprecedented move, asked for the judge’s ruling, ignored it, bypassed the Chamber of Appeals and unblocked the sale within a matter of hours. The court called the proceeding “per saltum” and has not applied it in any case since.

Once the airline was in Iberia’s hands, the Spanish company mortgaged the fleet to obtain the cash needed to pay for the acquisition. Aerolíneas Argentinas, which the Argentine government had cleaned up before putting it on the auction block, has been bearing the weight since then of a debt worth nearly a billion dollars.

The news has constantly been bad for the workers and the company. Of the 34 aircraft it used to own, Aerolíneas now has just one. The rest are rented.

In 1991, there were nearly 12,000 employees on the airline’s payroll, there are now 6,800 left, and their wages have been slashed. The company’s offices around the world have been sold off, as have flight simulators and other equipment.

In the last few years, Aerolíneas has given up some 40 air routes, both international and domestic.

Bullrich acknowledged once again Wednesday that the Aerolíneas deal represents “the worst privatisation and the worst administration” in Argentine history.

For Flabio Basteiro, of the airport workers’ syndicate, the problem has been festering for the last decade and numerous political leaders and lawmakers are accomplices to what he considers a “liquidation of the company.”

“What is happening today is barely a snapshot of the crisis. You have to see the entire movie,” he recommended.