Spanish government prepares to use military scabs against air traffic controllers

Air traffic controllers at the state-run Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (AENA) have voted 98 percent in favour of industrial action against a ferocious assault by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) government of Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero.

In February the government imposed by decree a 40 percent wage cut on the controllers. According to reports it is now imposing an increase in yearly hours’ commitment from 1,000 to 1,600 and, despite rising levels of illness, a reduction in rest periods.

Under European Union (EU) direction the PSOE is engaged in one provocation after another against air traffic controllers to smash up opposition to restructuring and privatisation. With unashamed hypocrisy, it is using the low wages imposed on the rest of the population to slash controllers’ wages. Blanco has asserted that it was “intolerable for the government to pay millionaire salaries to civil servants while seeking austerity from the rest of the Spanish people”.

Anticipating strike action Blanco is now training military personnel to replace civilian control staff in a fast-track exercise. He did not specify when they would be used, but said they would be “seen”. According to one report Mariano Casado, who heads the union representing Spanish military air controllers, has already committed his members to future strike-breaking activities stating the military “had the ability” to handle civil aviation but needed time to adapt.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/spai-a10.shtml

PATCO (the union who represented ATC at the time) was one of only two unions who endorsed Raygun's presiduncy.

Poetic, no?

In 2002 a private Swiss company controller who had all of 3 aircraft under his control managed to run two of them in to each other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision

In contrast, the US has a 100% government run ATC which is the safest and most efficient in the world.

Edit:
There is some ATC that is privatized in the US now that I think about it, but only at very low level airports.

Aren't they supposed to be pro-union and progressive?

It ain't always so. Despite the name, workers' rights kinda takes a back burner sometimes.

Obviously it is "supposed to" ... but as Clinton, Blair, Brown, and Obama have shown... "supposed to" loyalties of political parties to labor interests are now all sacrificeable in the interest of pandering to suburbanite/suburbanite-equivalent constituencies of "swing voters".

Witness:



Sounds like this is becoming a tradition in Spain as well as the UK and US. :)

Hmm... maybe Obama is a "socialist" after all, if this is the definition. :evilgrin:

And, somehow, the co-opting seems to usually go over with na'ry a hitch. It's almost enough to make you frustrated enough to start "blaming the victim"...