April 8 (Reuters) – Lufthansa faces a one-day strike this week, the airline’s third labor disruption in two months.
The cabin crew union UFO has called on staff at the core Lufthansa brand and its feeder airline Cityline to hold a one-day strike on Friday.
All Lufthansa departures from Frankfurt and Munich are set to be affected by the strike from 12:01 a.m. to 10 p.m. local time (2201 GMT Thursday to 2000 GMT Friday), the Independent Flight Attendants’ Organisation (UFO) said on Wednesday. Cityline cabin crew at nine German airports are set to walk out during the same period. In votes held at the end of March, the vast majority of those surveyed voted in favour of strike action following the breakdown of talks.
The union said Lufthansa has shown no flexibility in negotiations over working conditions for the 19,000 cabin crew members or the redundancy package for roughly 800 employees of Cityline, which is set to wind down operations.
“This situation could have been avoided – the responsibility lies with Lufthansa, which has so far not even managed to put forward a proposal suitable for negotiation,” UFO chief Joachim Vázquez Bürger said. Demands include better predictability of shifts and longer notice periods.
Lufthansa called on the union to resume talks.
“We apologise for the inconvenience caused to our guests by the UFO’s disproportionate and very short-notice strike,” spokesperson Martin Leutke said.
UFO and the pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit went on strike against Lufthansa for one day in mid-February, leading to massive flight cancellations. The pilots applied pressure again in mid-March with a two-day strike. This pay dispute is ongoing.
(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach, writing by Danny Callaghan, editing by Rod Nickel)
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