Independent trade union canceled strike at the airport after reaching agreement with employer

The Independent Trade Union of Airline Workers’ at the LLC Aerohandling made a decision to hold a strike on 19th of June at the Boryspil International Airport, as the collective labour dispute hadn’t been resolved. The independent trade union demanded a wages increase, ensuring decent working conditions, in particular, to equip rest and dining facilities, as well as to sign a collective bargaining agreement and to establish a social dialogue. At the same time, the employer avoided holding conciliation procedures and negotiations stipulated by the Law of Ukraine "On the Procedure for Resolving Collective Labor Disputes (Conflicts)".

After employer agreed to start a dialogue on the fulfillment of all requirements and signed an agreement on the resolution of a collective labor dispute the Independent Trade Union of Airline Workers’ at the LLC Aerohandling canceled the strike.

The Chairman of the Council of the Independent Trade Union of Airline Workers’ at the LLC Aerohandling Oleksii Popov informed that the list of 15 demands and a timeframe of its fulfillment were fixed in the agreement. In particular, trade union and employer negotiated the first wage increase for 10%, reducing the duration of shifts to 12 hours and signing the new collective agreement.

‘We achieve one very important goal of launching the effective social dialogue between the employer and the workers’, - commented Oleksiy Popov.

The Chairman of the Association of the Independent Trade Unions of Aviation Workers of Ukraine Veniamin Tymoshenko supported the Independent Trade Union of Airline Workers’ at the LLC Aerohandling and provided them with all possible assistance. He has a profound experience of participating in collective labor dispute and, moreover, won with his colleagues a case on the illegal prohibition of Aerosvit Airlines workers strike at the European Court for Human Rights.

’In January 2019, LLC Aerohandling employees organized an independent trade union that affiliated to our Association. Three months later they decided to take a bold step of the announcement of a strike because the employer had been ignoring their labor rights, legislation and did not want to enter negotiations. I want to emphasize that before the starting the collective labour dispute the workers and their trade union tried to resolve all problems within the dialogue. Only after the strike was announced the agreement between workers and employer on all 15 requirements was finally reached.

I consider the right to strike very important in the context of protecting labor rights in Ukraine, where employers can behave like a modern feudal lord, where 10 million people decided to look for better jobs and higher salaries abroad. Moreover, if the new draft Labor Code be adopted, the only tool for protecting workers rights and interests will be the strike. We stand for social dialogue, but if it doesn’t exist, by holding a legal strike with the fulfillment of all the legislative requirements we can force employers to start it’ – said Veniamin Tymoshenko.

KVPU information