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Poisonous greenfin instead of a Swiss cross: Anyone who books frequent flights from Switzerland has probably been served by Air Baltic’s Latvian crew. Switzerland has been outsourcing flights to the Latvian airline since summer 2022. Lufthansa’s subsidiary wanted to stabilize its flight schedule. It had to cancel many flights after the pandemic; There were staff shortages at its own and international airports.
When flight operators rent the aircraft, including the entire crew, from another company, it is called wet leasing. This practice had already caused a lot of noise last year. Shortly after the wet lease was announced, unions accused Swiss bosses of undercutting wages in a letter of protest.
Latvians are four times cheaper than Swiss. Air Baltic’s cabin crew earn between 900 and 1,500 euros per month. In Switzerland the minimum is 3,400 francs. It’s similar in the cockpit: a Latvian first officer gets 1,600 francs for the first few years, and new pilots in Switzerland get around 6,000 francs a month. Working conditions for Latvians are also worse than those in Switzerland.
Sandrine Nikolic from the Kapers cabin crew union was quoted as saying, “We are being replaced by cheap workers.” Given the foreseeable personnel shortage, Switzerland was inactive and currently using aircraft and crews that would significantly reduce its own cost structure. The contract with Air Baltic needs to be revised.
Switzerland always denied the accusation and continued to cooperate. But now research by SonntagsBlick shows that wet leasing in Switzerland may not be legal.
No response for twelve months
At the request of the Latvian union, the Zurich Labor Office (AWA) considered outsourcing to Latvians in September 2022 as so-called “cross-border staff hiring” – this is prohibited in Switzerland. “Any contract between Switzerland and Air Baltic [wäre] invalid,” says a related letter. The AWA is the supervisory authority on fare regulations and can impose fines and bans. But nothing happened.
The Swiss Federation of Trade Unions (SGB) and the cabin crew union Kapers appealed to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) a few months later. This concluded in March 2023 that the wet lease was an assignment, not a cross-border hire of staff, and Swiss fees should be paid accordingly. Evaluation is open to SonntagsBlick.
Federal Bern also makes it clear that the Zurich Labor Office is responsible for enforcing the law. Once the results are discussed with the AWA, it is planned to notify Switzerland so that future contracts with foreign airlines can ensure “compliance with Swiss regulations”. This was in March 2023. Nothing has happened since then.
“The canton of Zurich will need to at least secure Swiss wages or even ban wet renting,” says SGB chief economist Daniel Lampart. “Although we have represented through various channels, so far he has done neither one nor the other.”
They had not received any response from the office for twelve months, other than a report that someone else was in charge of the file and that someone else should go to another office.
In response to SonntagsBlick’s request, the Employment Agency wrote that the file was “being processed.” Since these are statements in an international context, it will take some time. It is not possible to say how long this will take due to “complexity”.
The contract was initially a temporary solution
Reporting to liberal economic director Carmen Walker Späh, is the AWA avoiding unpleasant decisions here?
In any case, the relationship with the airline is undeniable: this summer it became known that Flughafen Zürich AG, which operates Switzerland’s main airport and is almost 40 percent owned by the public sector, is subsidizing well-intentioned parties. years. FDP was one of the largest recipients, with approximately 300,000 francs. Additionally, government councilor Walker Späh sits on the board of directors of Flughafen Zürich AG, together with Zurich mayor Corine Mauch (SP).
Unionist Lampart says: “It is a mystery to me what still needs to be clarified here, despite the fact that the AWA has known about the situation for over a year and the federal government is investigating the matter. “We think the facts are clear.” And he adds: “Zurich refuses to enforce the law.”
From the perspective of employee representatives, this will be urgently needed; especially considering that the contract with Air Baltic, originally conceived as a temporary solution, “has now turned into a permanent situation”, as Lampart said. Switzerland has repeatedly expanded cooperation with the Latvians: first until the end of the summer flight program, and a few weeks later it was said that they would rely on Air Baltic for the winter flight program 2023/2024. Now: “We will probably continue our cooperation with Air Baltic in the summer of 2024.”
The airline’s spokesman contradicts the charge-cutting accusation. Switzerland complies with all applicable legal regulations. “Of course, we would prefer to operate all the flights ourselves.” However, the wet lease process allows seasonal spikes or unexpected events to be mitigated.
One reason for the extension is that the airline experienced engine problems and had to temporarily shut down the jets. According to the spokesperson, there are still very few spare parts available worldwide for the engine models in question.
Source :Blick
I’m Tim David and I work as an author for 24 Instant News, covering the Market section. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, my mission is to provide accurate, timely and insightful news coverage that helps our readers stay informed about the latest trends in the market. My writing style is focused on making complex economic topics easy to understand for everyone.
