Estonian Air reduces wages of pilots and flight attendants by a third
By Juhan Tere, The Baltic Course, Tallinn, 26 Jan 2010
Estonian national carrier Estonian Air lowered a couple of weeks ago the wages of pilots and flight attendants by a third. The trade unions, however, do not plan to accept such a move, informs LETA referring to Äripäev online
The Chairman of the trade union that represents the most regular flights pilots in Estonia Rauno Menning stated that first, the trade union will turn to the Labor Disputes Committee with a complaint against the enterprise and if that will not help, the trade union will turn to the court. Menning says that that the company’s board didn’t discuss the plans of reducing wages with trade unions in advance and thus violated the information and consultation order.
The President of Estonian Air Andrus Aljas explained that the temporary decline in wages was caused by the overall economic situation and the significantly decreased demand. He added that employees have the right of reducing their work hours correspondingly too.
Aljas said that initially the company thought of redundancies but since the current situation is undoubtedly temporary, decided against it.
Aljas refused to say how much the company would save by cutting the wages of pilots and cabin crew by 30% for three months.
