In the struggle for a crisis agreement with the pilots, the Swiss airline is taking the next escalation step and terminating the collective labor contract. Negotiations with the Aeropers union ended with no results.

There are different views on the course of the talks. Swiss accuses the employee representatives that they were "not prepared to make sufficient concessions during the crisis years", the union sees it exactly the other way around. In any case, the airline terminated the collective labor agreement - comparable to a collective agreement. The condition due to the notice period ends on March 31, 2022.

The corona pandemic also hit Swiss hard. The carrier posted an operating loss of 2020 million Swiss francs in 400. The Lufthansa subsidiary was saved with an emergency loan of 1,5 billion Swiss francs. The Swiss Confederation is liable for the majority of the loan. The airline wants to achieve cost savings in personnel. For example, multi-year crisis agreements were concluded with the social partners of the floor and cabin workers.

Different negotiation goals

So far, no agreement has been reached with the pilots. The carrier assumes that there will be an overhang of pilots in the next few years. Swiss wants to negotiate a new collective employment contract. However, the union wants to conclude temporary crisis agreements initially, but let the original agreement continue. So the fronts are hardened.

"Without substantial contributions and expanded options for action during the Corona crisis, from our point of view it is not entrepreneurially responsible to maintain the current collective employment contract," explains Thomas Frick, Chief Operating Officer of Swiss. "We are committed to social partnership and are convinced that we can conclude a new crisis-proof and future-proof collective labor contract for pilots together with Aeropers, which in particular also meets the requirements of modern working time models".