Tap your fingers KLM: ‘Higher wages not in line with aid conditions’ | Inland

State agent Jeroen Kremers writes this in a letter to the Senate. Among other things, he questions the new collective labor agreement for pilots. The pilots receive money in this, while the KLM staff had to give up considerably as a condition for state support in corona time. When arranging that wage sacrifice, the pilots were the bitten, because they did not want to surrender for a long time. As a result, support for KLM, 3.4 billion euros in government loans and guarantees, even came to a halt until the pilots finally gave in.

But their new collective labor agreement ‘does not meet the conditions’, writes Kremers, who indicates that it is also still being discussed internally: “The pilots have been discussing this collective labor agreement and this collective labor agreement was ultimately not approved by the pilots. It remains to be seen where this discussion will lead and whether or not the working conditions of pilots meet the support conditions in 2022 and beyond.”

raised eyebrows

A general wage increase for KLM staff of about 5 percent also raises eyebrows at Kremers. “The state agent was not informed about this in advance,” he writes. Nor has KLM substantiated that this increase meets the conditions of the support package. It now appears that this is not the case, and without further measures KLM will not meet the conditions regarding moderation of the employment conditions in 2022.”

Kremers also questions KLM’s approach to tax avoidance by pilots. They often live in countries with attractive tax rates and are then allowed to fly to Schiphol for free to go to work. A working group with pilots within KLM would work on an approach to this, but according to the state agent, little has come of this: “In May it turned out that this working group had been discontinued without any action. Proposals of concrete measures are pending. The violation of this aid condition, which has now been going on for almost two years, has not yet come to an end.”

And also in the field of cost reduction, Kremers says he still does not see enough of KLM. The company must lower that as a condition by 15 percent, but according to the state agent, the airline does not structurally do that with the measures taken. In an earlier report, he therefore stated that the company still had to cut costs by 400 million euros. “Since then, no further measures have been received from KLM to meet the condition of structural cost reduction,” he now concludes.

Minister Sigrid Kaag (Finance) says in a response: “The findings of the state agent are solid and show that we are not there yet.” She says that the cabinet will soon discuss the conclusions of the state agent with KLM: “The basic principle is that KLM complies with the agreements made.”

The strong admonition from state agent Kremers comes at a time when the Dutch State wants to make the cut again for Air France KLM. Minister Kaag is prepared to invest more than 200 million euros in a share buyback to maintain the Dutch interest in the company. But the Senate and House of Representatives still have to give the green light for this this week.

KLM: find a solution quickly

KLM hopes to quickly find a solution to the collective labor agreement problem in consultation with the trade unions, and in particular about the collective labor agreement with pilots that has already expired, the airline said in response to the critical comments of the state agent. KLM also emphasizes that 3.4 billion euros in aid has been promised, but that the company has used 942 million euros. Of this, 311 million euros has now been repaid. Furthermore, KLM has reduced the ‘controllable costs’ by 30 percent. That is more than the 15 percent that was agreed.

The collective labor agreement for the flight crew of KLM ran until 1 March this year. The collective labor agreements with ground and cabin personnel will run until the end of this year. According to KLM, the new collective labor agreement for flight crews has been delayed by a critical report by the International Labor Organization ILO about the conditions imposed by the State. According to the ILO, agreements on employee wages should not have been made without consulting trade unions. The ruling of the organization was non-binding, but according to the unions that had initiated the case, it did send a clear signal.

The collective labor agreement for the pilots will be discussed further in the coming weeks. KLM has also set up a working group with trade unions. A broad solution is sought in this regard.

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