The ground staff of KLM will go on strike for 24 hours on Saturday, the FNV trade union announced on Tuesday. As a result, many flights are likely to be cancelled: for example, suitcases cannot be loaded onto aircraft without ground staff.
The action will start in the night from Friday to Saturday at 2:00 AM and end in the night from Saturday to Sunday at 2:00 AM. It is a result of the deadlocked collective labor agreement negotiations between the trade union and KLM.
The actions have now been officially announced at KLM. “Our members are completely ready for it and completely fed up with it,” says John van Dorland, director at FNV Luchtvaart. “This is not a game. KLM has had enough time. If the management thinks it will all blow over, they are mistaken. It’s simple: without ground staff, nothing flies.”
In addition to a wage increase, the trade union also wants a better scheme for people with physically demanding work, allowing them to stop working earlier.
FNV also wants KLM to be fairer. This means that the company will treat ground staff the same as, for example, pilots. “For example, the management wants the staff to be more flexible,” says Van Dorland. “The pilots have received a considerable compensation for this. But the ground staff, who keep the company running day and night, are being kept on a leash. They get nothing. They won’t take it anymore.”
It is not yet clear exactly what impact the strike will have on air traffic. KLM wrote earlier this week in a letter to the trade union that a strike would cause “many days of inconvenience, cancellations and extra costs that will run into the tens of millions”.