TRANSPORTATION | 04.12.2010
Spanish airspace reopens as wildcat strike ends
Spanish airspace has reopened after a wildcat strike by air traffic controllers brought air traffic to a standstill earlier on Saturday.
Spanish airport authorities AENA said the afternoon shift had begun as normal. Air traffic is expected to return to normal within 24 to 48 hours, Public Works Minister Jose Blanco announced.
Earlier on Saturday, the country's government was forced to declare a state of emergency handing over control of airspace to the military.
In response to the wildcat strike, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero ordered the takeover after some 70 percent of air traffic controllers left their posts or failed to turn up for work on Friday.
The walkouts came as the country headed into one of its busiest long weekends. The coming Monday and Wednesday are state holidays and many people plan to take Tuesday off for a five-day weekend.
Blackmail
Zapatero cracked down on the unofficial strike overnight
The unofficial strike came just hours after the cabinet agreed to a package of changes to how the country's airports are operated. The government stipulated that the maximum time air traffic controllers could work in a year was 1,670 hours, and announced a plan to sell 49 percent of AENA. The controllers have been locked in a dispute with AENA and the Transport Ministry over the changes for months.
The Spanish government said the walkout was unacceptable.
"We will not allow this blackmail that uses citizens as hostages," Blanco told a press conference.
By putting the military in charge, the government upped the ante. As a consequence, any air traffic controllers who failed to show up for work could have been charged and prosecuted under military law and face up to 10 years in prison.
"If a controller does not show up to his workplace, he will be placed immediately in custody accused of a crime which could mean serious prison sentences," Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.
The walkoffs stranded some 250,000 passengers in Spain'A popular revolt'
Union leaders maintained they were not striking. But Camila Cela, head of the USCA air traffic controllers' union, told Reuters that "this is a popular revolt."
Jorge Ontiveros, a spokesman for the Syndicate Union of Air Controllers, told the AFP news agency that the working hours stipulation would mean that time taken off for paternity leave or sick days would not count towards the maximum hours.
"We have reached our limit mentally with the new decree approved this morning obliging us to work more hours," he said. "We took the decision individually, which then spread to other colleagues because they cannot carry on like this. In this situation we cannot control planes," he said.
The cabinet's decision on Friday was part of an effort to rein in costs, raise money, calm the markets and avoid the kind of debt crisis that Greece and Ireland have seen in the last year.
Author: Holly Fox, Andreas Illmer (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
Editor: Martin Kuebler
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