The tension between airport ground services workers (handling) and Aena and Iberia has escalated one more step. The unions UGT and CC.OO. They have called for a round of demonstrations starting next week to protest against the result of the handling contest, which has left Iberia out of eight large airports, including El Prat and Palma de Mallorca.
Iberia only maintains Barajas as the main infrastructure, while Groundforce, Aviapartner and Menzies have won the tender in the rest of the important places in a competition with a total business volume of 5,000 million euros in seven years. Now, some 3,000 Iberia workers – the majority at Barcelona airport – are awaiting subrogation at the eight lost airports, but both employees and unions fear that working conditions will be worse in the new companies awarded contracts. The Aena tender specifications indicate in this regard that the sector agreement is mandatory.
One of the solutions that the workers have proposed is for Iberia to provide autohandling to the airlines of its group, IAG, which would only force 900 people to be subrogated. However, Iberia has not yet made a decision and is concentrating on studying the scores of the contest, which it analyzed on Wednesday in an eight-hour meeting with Aena, to assess whether to challenge it or let it pass.
“There is great concern among the workforce,” explain sources at Barcelona airport, with 1,800 employees pending a process that should be finalized at the end of next March. From UGT and CC.OO. They ask for “a response” that clarifies the criteria for the results of the contest and provides guarantees for the maintenance of working conditions in all companies. For this reason, they demand “solutions” from AENA, the Government and all operators, “especially Iberia.”
“The risk of loss of the handling business in Iberia is not just an isolated problem, since it also affects the entire structure of the company and the rest of the sector,” they insist. The protests will start next week with a series of rallies in different workplaces in the country and on October 23, a unitary mobilization is being prepared in all of Spain's airports managed by Aena.
One of the most contested airports in this contest has been Barcelona, where a large number of airlines do not have their own handling service – what is known as third-party assistance and which includes the transport of suitcases from the terminals to the planes. , cargo management, mail or runway operations. Until now, Iberia held the largest market share in El Prat, with 60% of the airlines that contract handling, including Vueling, its largest client in all the airports where it offers this service.
