By Stephen Rice The Problem The aviation industry faces a worldwide shortage of qualified pilots. Numerous agencies cite the need to hire thousands of new pilots over the next two decades. In fact, some air carriers are already reducing or canceling flight schedules as a result of these pilot shortages. Given this need to hire […]
The ITF alongside the ITUC and BWI yesterday attended the historical opening of the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) office in Doha. For the first time the workers in Qatar will be able to bring complaints through the ILO office and it will allow for the ITF to assist in the process and the follow up the […]
UNI Global Union has backed the ITF and its unions in their defence of Avianca workers in Colombia. At its world executive board meeting on 10-11 October, UNI expressed concern over Avianca’s violation of the right to freedom of association, collective bargaining and the right to strike, and its failure to comply with labour legislation, […]
Every time we fly, we trust our life to a stranger. As well as mechanical failures and disastrous weather, a pilot must be ready to handle stress, terrorism and hours in the air. What kind of person sits inside that locked cockpit? The most striking thing about the conversation was its utter calm. “Mayday, mayday, […]
As ver.di members strike at Cologne Bonn Airport today, their colleagues in the Independent Pilots Association (UPS pilots) are supporting them in the most concrete way possible: They’re refusing to cross the picket lines. IPA president Robert Travis vowed: We will honor their strike and not cross the ver.di picket lines.”. Read the statement and […]
Two stories with big consequences for the participants and lessons for the rest of us were in the news this week. After years of fighting their firing for expressing concern about the security of their aircraft, 13 United flight attendants have been reinstated. You may recall from a previous post on my blog, that in the […]
After a two-day strike, pilots and cabin workers here won union representation and a contract. The workers are employed by temp agency Global Employer Company, which hires pilots and cabin crew for the United Kingdom-based carrier Flybe, a subcontractor since last year for some short runs of Scandinavian Airlines System. Negotiations between Global Employer and […]
In January 2014, at the request of the Confederation of Labour of Russia (KTR) and the pilots union at Aeroflot, the LabourStart launched an online campaign demanding the release of jailed union leaders Alexei Shlyapnokov, Valeriy Pimoshenko and Sergei Knyshov, and the ITF Civil Aviation Section supported this campaign. As part of this campaign over […]
