– The feedback is exclusively positive. There are thumbs up and words like that the heart beats for us and “stand on”. Carl Harbitz-Rasmussen is standing in the Bergen rain outside Flesland. Together with five other pilots, he is on strike to answer questions from travelers. After many canceled flights and canceled summer trips, he was excited about the reactions. – It never fits that our working group has a labor dispute, and perhaps especially bad in the summer. Of course there are many shattered dreams. Carl Harbitz-Rasmussen understands that travelers are disappointed, but says the feedback from those he has met as a strike guard is exclusively positive. Photo: Charlotte Haarvik Sanden – Not about finances On Monday it was clear that around 900 pilots from Norway, Sweden and Denmark will be taken out on strike. SAS CEO Anko Van der Werff was furious and said the pilots showed shockingly little understanding of the company’s situation. Many travelers were given up after several years of coronary restrictions and delimitations within tourism. Harbitz-Rasmussen understands this well. He, who is also a board member of SAS Norge Flygerforening, thinks it is important to point out that this is about something bigger than salary. – This strike is not about finances. It never did. It is about having normal, livable working conditions, and not least getting our dismissed back to work. This is the subject of the dispute in the pilot strike The pilots are on strike because they fear loss of established working conditions if they apply for a job in SAS ‘new subsidiaries. This has been the development in recent years. Initially, the airline is owned by three national companies in Scandinavia. Photo: Torstein Bøe / NTB The goal is to save money and become more competitive. Over the years, the company struggles a lot with the economy and tries different strategies and group structures to increase profitability and lower costs. Photo: Erlend Aas / NTB Scandinavian Airlines Ireland will be based in Ireland and will compete with foreign companies, but will face opposition from the Swedish pilot association. In 2018, the company’s pilots will complain about working conditions and more will leave. 560 pilots are laid off and then dismissed, with an agreement on re-employment rights in SAS. Photo: MARTIN SYLVEST / AFP SAS Link is created. In addition, the company that was established in Ireland in 2017 will be renamed SAS Connect. Connect will be based in Copenhagen and enter into an agreement with Danish pilot associations. The pandemic is coming to an end. The pilots want to return to work, but are told to apply to the subsidiaries Link and Connect. Trade unions call it a breach of promise. Pilots are in armor and are suing SAS. Photo: Annika Byrde / NTB After months of talks, negotiations and finally mediation, the pilots go on strike. They refuse to be employed in subsidiaries with poorer working conditions than they had before the pandemic. SAS is struggling with the economy and is despairing over a strike in the middle of the high season. Photo: CHRIS ANDERSON / TT / NTB SAS and some subsidiaries are starting a court process in the USA to apply for bankruptcy protection, so-called chapter 11 petition. In practice, they can then not be filed for bankruptcy next year. This is a step in SAS’s rescue plan for its own finances. Photo: Lars Schröder / TT / NTB Danish SAS pilots warn of blockade against SAS ‘newly established subsidiary SAS Crew Services Denmark. – We do not want to risk the management doing the same thing again by moving work and production to empty companies to circumvent the agreement. They have done this before with the subsidiaries Link and Connect, says chief negotiator in Dansk Metal, Keld Bækkelund Hansen. Show more Call the strike stupid On Tuesday, NHH professor Frode Steen took a hard line against both the company and the pilots, and called the strike stupid. He believed both parties would lose their reputation. – It is so wrong for the company and the pilots. They lose so much in the reputation and in frustration around them. They can not really afford to continue in this way, said the professor. SAS pilot Harbitz-Rasmussen says he is in a good position with the pilots’ reputation, even if he were to be without the strike. – It’s not lucky. It is not lucky for SAS or us. But for me personally, it’s about decency. SAS: – The door is open Press manager in SAS, Tonje Sund, tells news that they still think the agreements with the pilots are good, but that the discussion about them is important. She says more than 30,000 travelers are affected by the strike every day, and that they are doing what they can to find a solution. SAS Norway’s pilots’ association says they will not initiate new talks with the charter today. Now Sund hopes that they turn around. – We would like them to return to the negotiating table. This is where we can find a solution. The door is open, she says.
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– Of course there are many shattered dreams – news Vestland
