Chile national airline sackings condemned (ITF)

April 4, 2013

The ITF has written to Chile national airline LAN to condemn its sacking of 70 cabin crew.

In a letter sent on 4 April to LAN Vice-President of People Emilio del Real Soto, ITF civil aviation secretary Gabriel Mocho urged the company to reinstate the workers immediately and enter into proper negotiations with their union, ITF affiliate the LAN Cabin Workers’ Union (STCLA).

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.

Mocho wrote: “We condemn these brutal and unjust sackings, which appear to be the result of poor management planning.”

He continued: “The sackings will raise doubts about the future of the LATAM merger, which STCLA had supported when LAN promised it would benefit the workforce. Trust in the merger is now undermined, as assurances to cabin crew that there will be no further sackings or transfers offer no solace to ground staff and other workers and unions in the company.”

He concluded: “Due to this break down in trust, the ITF will urgently inform the unions representing workers at LATAM Airlines Group about the broken commitments made to STCLA workers. We will be advising them to take precautionary measures to avoid more redundancies in the LATAM Group.”

The merger of LAN and TAM Airlines was completed in December 2011 to form LATAM Airlines Group, or LATAM.

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Unions can express solidarity with the STCLA and the sacked workers by email to sindimail@terra.cl