KLM pilots willing to extend the cuts to get help.
The pilots of KLM airline showed on Monday their willingness to negotiate with the company the extension of the wage freeze until 2025, a requirement of the government of The Hague to reconsider a restructuring plan of the company that would allow the unblocking of the state aid of 3,400 million euros, EFE reported.
See also: Air France-KLM loses € 6,078 million between January and September.
In the agreement rejected on Saturday by the Dutch government, KLM had obtained the support of the unions to draw up a plan for cuts, with a conditional freeze on staff wages until 2022, but Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra considered that it was insufficient and that the commitment should be extended until 2025, when the state aid offered would expire.
See also: Dutch government withdraws state aid to KLM.
As confirmed by Willem Schmid, president of the Dutch Airline Pilots Association (VNV), the staff is willing to talk to KLM about wage “moderation” over the next five years, but warned that negotiations will have to take place and that they will not sign “a blank check” with the airline.
“We had an agreement between KLM and the unions on October 1 for two-year cuts, but on Friday we were asked to sign a document of agreed terms between the government and KLM. With the content and terms kept secret, they asked the unions to sign a blank check,” Schmid told Dutch radio BNR.
The pilots say that their refusal is not to commit to making the necessary cuts over a longer period of time, but that it is because they do not know what KLM and the minister have agreed to, so they demand that what has been discussed be shared with them before signing their commitment.
Hoekstra has already said that he will not speak directly with the unions, despite Schmid’s invitation, and considers that “the ball is in KLM’s court” because the government has reached agreements with the airline’s management, which it will have to implement by reaching agreements with staff representatives.
KLM’s management called on the company’s staff to commit themselves “in the interest of its members, all KLM employees and the future of the company,” warning that without state aid it is almost certain that the company, with its 30,000 employees, will declare bankruptcy.
The Air France-KLM aviation group was hit hard by the reduction in flights due to the pandemic. On Friday, the French-Dutch company announced a net loss of more than 6 billion euros in the first nine months of the year, when in the same period in 2019 it had earned 135 million euros, due to the coronavirus crisis.
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