Air-traffic controllers plan strikes for June
Friday, May 29, 2015 @ 7:41 PM
AIR-TRAFFIC controllers in Spain have planned four strikes hitting morning and afternoon flights in two weeks' time.
They will down tools for four hours on Monday, June 8 and on Wednesday and Friday of that week, and then again on Sunday, June 14.
The strike will be split equally between mornings – from 10.00hrs to noon - and evenings from 18.00hrs to 20.00hrs, meaning flights are likely to be cancelled or delayed.
According to the air-traffic control workers' union, USCA, they had planned the demonstrations for March, but the Germanwings crash in the French Alps en route from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, of which there were no survivors, forced them to put it off.
They were then going to strike over Easter and during the local and regional elections in Spain, held on Sunday, but decided to leave it until June.
This is in response to fines issued to 61 air-traffic controllers who went on strike in December 2010 despite the then president of the government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, declaring a state of emergency to prevent them from doing so.
They were suspended from their jobs for a month without pay, and one air-traffic controller in the north-western cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela was fired after Spanish air-space was closed on December 3 and 4, 2010.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com