Air traffic controller strike over
And I must admit I am quite impressed. Being a socialist leaning country I expected spain to dither over this issue. But no, they went quite hardcore, declared a state of emergency and force the air-traffic controller back to work. Bravo I say!
These air-traffic controllers earn an obscene amount of money by most standards, fair enough the job is a stressful one, and holds a lot of responsibility. But when you earn 10 times the average income, I think most of the us expect the job to involve high levels of stress, responsibility, so they have no right to whinge.
I have no problem working fewer hours, or AENA hiring more staff. Seems sensible as you don’t want air-traffic controllers making mistakes. But then they should take less pay. Halve their pay, so the worst off makes only 100.000€ a year and double the amount of staff.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the hard work they do, and the commitment they have to make, but that is the reason for the financial incentive. They cannot expect an easier job at the same pay.
How the air-traffic controller must have panicked when they heard the Spanish government wanted to sell a 49% stake in AENA! They are worried that their pay would come more into line with international (ie: lower pay) standards.
Now let’s see if the air-traffic controllers have gone to far as the spanish government is looking for the guilty parties now.
Lets see what happens next
