French airline pilots call off strike
French pilots have called off a strike that threatened to seriously disrupt flights during May. Union leaders say they are happy with a government promise to try to stop foreign pilots replacing them during industrial action.
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The pilots’ union SNPL, which had planned the strike to start on Saturday and end on 30 May, decided to call it off on Friday after its president Yves Deshayes met Transport Minister Frédéric Cuvillier.
The SNPL’s most important concern was a 2012 law that obliges transport workers to give 48 hours’ notice if they wish to take part in a strike.
The airlines used it to replace strikers with foreign pilots, the union claimed.
“For the first time the government has accepted that these practises are not acceptable,” Deshayes told reporters on Friday, adding that Cuvillier had given a “strong commitment” but “no guarantee” on the law.
Cuvillier said that he had asked the airlines to adopt a code of conduct and that he would meet bosses soon because “these methods interfere with a fundamental right” – the right to strike.
But he added that company’s organisational needs and the necessity to inform passengers need to be taken into account and expressed concern for the recovery of troubled national flag-carrier Air France, which would have been most affected by the industrial action.
On the union’s other demands – a national agreement on pilots’ working conditions, reduction of taxes on air traffic and easing security for air crews - Deshayes declared himself satisfied with the government’s response.
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