After further unsuccessful talks with Lufthansa, the pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) announced on Friday that it will meet next week to discuss possible strike action. The union’s bargaining committee will reassess the situation and determine the next steps, VC said. Members of the union had already voted in favor of industrial action in a ballot, but VC had continued negotiations with Lufthansa in recent days.
VC and Lufthansa had held seven rounds of negotiations by early September without reaching an agreement on the issue of occupational pensions for pilots of the group’s core brand, Lufthansa Classic, as well as for Lufthansa Cargo. The union subsequently declared the talks a failure and called for a strike vote. By the end of September, the result was clear, the pilots have been formally prepared to strike since then.
“Then, however, a window opened for talks on other topics as well,” VC Chairman Andreas Pinheiro said on Friday. “To explore all possible solutions, we entered into preliminary discussions with the employer side.” Within the Lufthansa Group, which also includes airlines such as Brussels, Austrian, Swiss, and Eurowings, disputes over working conditions have been ongoing for some time. Employee representatives have accused the management of deliberately undermining existing wage agreements through the creation of new airlines.
According to Pinheiro, these “preliminary talks” in recent days also touched on that issue. However, Lufthansa was not prepared to engage in “comprehensive discussions.” VC is now once again focusing solely on the pension issue, said Arne Karstens, spokesperson for the bargaining committee. “To this day, there is no offer on the table that even remotely addresses our concerns,” he added.
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