Turkish Airlines (THY) declared to have completed 2016 with a huge loss, and 2017 does not look so bright for the company right from the beginning. As a result, THY’s negotiations with the Turkish Civil Aviation Union (Hava-İş) concluded with two offers, both of which are disadvantageous to the employees: Either hundreds of employees will be fired, or all of the employees will accept to work without any pay raise in 2017.
Hava-İş announced the terms with a message to the members. “As a result of the negotiations with Turkish Airlines, as we are all aware, it was seen that THY had suffered a substantial loss due to the crisis in 2016, and it is expected that 2017 will also be a tough year for the company. It was reported to us that 25 narrow-bodied and 7 wide-bodied aircrafts had been withdrawn to the hangars. According to the calculations of the Team Planning Department, 24 flight attendants and 12 pilots work in a narrow-bodied aircraft, while 60 flight attendants and 20 pilots work in a wide-bodied aircrafts (models 330 and 340). Regarding the calculations, it was reported to our Union that the surplus labor included more than 1000 flight attendants and nearly 500 pilots. In this context, THY appealed to our Union with an offer of retrench by either collective redundancy, or not giving any raises (including social aid and all of the rights regarding wages) in 2017," Hava-İş said in the message.
"We will either face up to decapitation of some of our friends and directly refuse the offer, or we will renounce any pay raise for 2017. Regarding our situation, as a union, we believe that it would be the right choice to renounce the pay raise in exchange for an assurance that there will be no collective redundancy. However, since this is a decision that interests us all, we thought that it would be better to make this decision by collecting the opinions of all of our members with a questionnaire,” said the message.
THY BOUGHT FORMER TUNISIAN PRESIDENT'S PLANE
Even though THY made a big loss in 2016, it is still not forgotten that the company bought the ex-presidential plane of Tunisia for President Erdoğan’s use. The plane, which belonged to Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia, was sold to THY for $78 million.
After firing 123 Do&Co workers in November for being union members, Turkish Airlines fired 200 more workers in December. The company’s catering partner, Do&Co, also fired 123 employees who were unionized in 2016. The employees had had to work under inhuman conditions with unfair wages, which had led them to unionize, and come to terms with the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DİSK). Afterwards, one of their co-workers gave the list of unionized employees to the company, and one of the employees was called to the company, getting informed that his “contract was terminated due to market shrinkage”. Then, the other 122 employees were called to a hotel, and was told the same thing.
