TENERIFE’S tourism and airport chiefs breathed a huge sigh of relief on Tuesday when two one-day strikes planned for this month were called off.
The three main unions involved agreed to abandon the protest by baggage handlers and other ground staff, scheduled for Thursday (18th August) and the following Friday at all Spanish airports, including those in the Canaries.
Tenerife’s South and North airports would have been devastated had the walk-outs gone ahead – as would the Tourist Board (Tenerife Turismo), during what is regarded as the busiest month of the year for receiving holiday-makers.
Despite strike denials last week by AENA, which controls all Spanish airports, up to 60,000 ground staff were preparing to stage the 24-hour walk-outs.
It would have caused havoc for thousands of British tourists, making the most of the school summer holidays – especially with this week’s terrifying riots plaguing the UK.
To make matters worse, Thursday’s strike would have coincided with the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in Madrid for World Youth Day celebrations.
The proposed strikes were sparked partly by the decision of private company WFS at Barcelona’s El Prat airport to lay off four workers.
A union spokesman said: “When WFS took over the handling contract at the airport, they guaranteed there would be no redundancies. Then, shortly afterwards, they made four people redundant, which was unacceptable.
“For us, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We’ve been trying to sit down with the company since 4th July without success. Industrial action is our only option.”
Three of the sacked staff were later rehired by WFS, but the unions called the action in support of the fourth worker, who has since been reinstated.
There were other unresolved issues contributing to the strikes, but these problems were said to have been resolved during Tuesday’s meeting between the leading unions CCOO, UGT and USO, AENA and the employers’ association ASEATA.
But news of the impending strike had come as an almighty shock to the airport authority, which told Canarian Weekly last week in response to a misleading Daily Express strike story: “We settled our differences with the unions back in March and no disruptions to flights have been planned, or even talked about.”
Generally, tens of thousands of tourists pass through Spanish airports daily, with almost six million visitors in the first six months of this year, and 1.5 million in June alone.
And with the collapse of the building industry, which led to the start of recession throughout Spain three years ago, the tourism sector has been relied on to boost trading figures, especially in the Canary Islands.
Tenerife would have felt the pinch as much, if not more, than any other area because the number of holiday-makers here has shown a marked improvement this year following a nightmare 2010.
In fact, the eight Canary Islands’ airports reported a total of three million-plus passengers last month, which was an impressive 11.3% up from last year.
And the largest increase was recorded by Tenerife South with a near-18% improvement, taking the total to in excess of 709,000 passengers, against last year’s figures.
Incidentally, Canarian Weekly makes no apology for highlighting last week’s scaremongering by the Daily Express, which referred to a baggage-handlers’ strike that had been resolved months earlier.
Unfortunately and unwittingly, the repentant newspaper, which stressed the following day that there would be no strike action in Spain or Tenerife, actually uncovered one in the making anyway.
Happily for all concerned, that is no longer the case!
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