The Union of Aviation and Airport Workers (Sitava) said today that the strike at Portway had an approximate membership of 30% on Sunday, causing delays in most flights, expecting similar figures on the second day of stoppage.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, Fernando Henriques, Sitava’s leader, said that the first day of the strike at the handling company (ground handling at airports) whose main client is easyJet “went within expectations”, with a membership “in the order of 30%”.
Sitava recalled that it is a company in which “more than half of the workers are temporary”, which means that the company was able to ensure the minimum services decreed for the strike, but the stoppage meant that “almost no flights left on time”, with delays ranging from 30 minutes to more than two hours.
For today, the second day of the first strike period decreed by Sitava, the Union of Workers of the Merchant Navy, Travel Agencies, Freight Forwarders and Fishing (Simamevip), the Aviation and Airport Workers (Sitava), the Airport Handling Technicians (STHA) and the Democratic Union of Airport and Aviation Workers (Sindav), membership figures of the same order are expected.
The workers’ representative structures called for a strike starting at 00:00 on Sunday and lasting until 23:59 today, then resuming between 00:00 on August 5 and 23:59 on August 6, and also an indefinite strike on public holidays, for which the unions expect greater adherence, as it is a “focal point” of the conflict between workers and the company.
The unions argue that, after eight months of application of the Company Agreement of (AE2020), which provides that “work done on a public holiday, which is a normal working day, will entitle you to an increase of 50% of the corresponding remuneration”, the company decided, “unilaterally, to change the way of calculating the payment of holidays on a scale, contrary to the spirit that had been agreed (change from the coefficient 1.50 to 0.50)”.
On the other hand, they recall that, between March 2022 and May 2023, a conflict prevention process requested by Portway took place “allegedly with the aim of ‘converging the union structures in the adoption of a single collective regulation instrument’ (a single SA), as well as ‘maintaining a climate of social peace'”, ensuring that “they always participated in this process constructively and in good faith, as they had already been in the 2019/20 negotiation process”.
However, after the 16th negotiation meeting held on 24 May at the Directorate-General for Employment and Labour Relations (DGERT), the unions accuse Portway of, “both by actions and omissions”, being “directing its workers to join a particular organization”, in an attitude that it considers to be “absolutely unqualified”.
Portway said it does not recognize grounds for the strike, guaranteeing “strict” compliance with the Company Agreement (AE) with regard to holiday work, according to a statement.
Lusa tried to obtain an assessment of the strike by the company, but it has not been possible so far.
Portway workers start strike today over non-compliance with Company Agreement
