WKO aviation specialist group chairman Günther Ofner strongly criticized the strike that the Vida union was calling on its members flying for Austrian Airlines. He even sees the future of the Lufthansa subsidiary in danger.
“Negotiating means that the social partners approach each other in order to find a workable compromise. This time, the AUA on-board works council and the Vida union only made impossible maximum demands, which they insisted on at all costs, no matter how great the damage is," says Günther Ofner, chairman of the WKÖ aviation professional group, describing the union's blockade stance as "reckless “Action with serious consequences for thousands of passengers.”
Furthermore: “No one who is responsible for the future of the AUA can meet the demand for a 40 percent salary increase, because that would be an aid to the economic suicide of the AUA and would endanger thousands of jobs throughout the entire service chain of Austrian air traffic. “50.000 frustrated and angry passengers, including many families with school-age children, who cannot go on their vacation as planned or are stuck abroad, and more than 15 million euros in economic damage to AUA - at the airport and to the affected service providers - are the dramatic ones Consequences of this irresponsible action. I wonder where Vida's social, community and economic responsibility has gone."
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