As soon as the warning strike by Lufthansa ground staff ended, the cabin union UFO called on the approximately 19,000 flight attendants of the airline and Lufthansa Cityline to go on strike on Tuesday and Wednesday. All departures from Frankfurt will be on strike from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Tuesday and all departures from Munich on Wednesday, as UFO announced.
The flight attendants of the core company and the regional subsidiary Lufthansa Cityline had previously voted for the strike in separate ballots with more than 96 percent each.
The Lufthansa Group criticized the union for unnecessarily carrying out the collective bargaining dispute on the backs of the passengers. With this strike, UFO is expected to hit around 100,000 passengers on the two days.
The group management is essentially offering its employees 6.0 percent more money for August 2024 and 3.25 percent for August 2025 for a term of 24 months. In addition, an inflation compensation bonus of 3,000 euros is to be paid in April 2024. For the Cityline, with a term of 30 months, there should be 5.0 percent more for March 2024, 3.0 percent more for March 2025 and 2.5 percent more for January 2026. In addition, the remaining inflation compensation bonus of 3,000 euros is paid out.
The union points out that the group has announced a net profit of almost 1.7 billion euros for 2023. “The cabin must now also be involved in this success and the concessions that were made during the Corona crisis must be sufficiently compensated,” said UFO boss Joachim Vázquez Bürger.
For what the union says are around 18,000 cabin employees at Lufthansa and the almost 1,000 employees at Cityline, UFO is essentially demanding 15 percent more money over a contract period of 18 months. The union also wants to achieve an inflation compensation bonus of 3,000 euros and higher allowances.
In the post-Corona year of 2022, UFO was the only union in the Lufthansa Group to refrain from taking industrial action. In the collective bargaining agreement, the lower wage groups in particular were raised, while the inflation compensation bonus was postponed until the current collective bargaining round.
In addition to the cab union, the train drivers’ union GDL has called for industrial action. If you want to travel within Germany, you have to use your own car, long-distance buses, rental cars or ride-sharing companies. The employee representatives did not coordinate their strikes.
The Independent Flight Attendant Organization (UFO), founded in 1992, exclusively represents flight attendants primarily at Condor and the Lufthansa Group. In individual flight operations it competes with the DGB union Verdi, which also wants to organize the flying staff. Coordinated cooperation between the two unions is unlikely.