Flight attendants’ union disputes with Lufthansa

Author: Marcus Schilling
Date: 30.09.2019

Ufo threats with further strikes

Discussions between the aircraft staff union and Lufthansa are still going on. If Lufthansa does not continue to negotiate with Ufo, they will “inform the company on October 14 about the industrial action taken in the LH group”, Ufo’s collective bargaining chairman Daniel Flohr announced on Friday.

This threat comes because the Group and its subsidiary Eurowings have avoided further collective bargaining with Ufo for months. The issue of whether the union lawfully terminated the collective bargaining agreements is also a big topic there.

At this point, Ufo sees itself as having an advantage against the Frankfurt labor court. Lufthansa wanted to have this confirmed, but the application was rejected by the court. The Group responded by confirming this and now lodged an appeal against it. “I think it is unlikely that a second court will see the matter in a completely different light,” said Ufo CEO Flohr.

In August, Lufthansa had also asked the Frankfurt regional labor court to review and confirm whether Ufo was really a union. For several months now, the company has not been able to present an executive board authorized to represent the company and thus no longer has the ability to exercise the role of a collective bargaining partner.

Reasons for this are the dismissals of numerous members of the management board. These are attributable to past leadership disputes in the divisional union. Among the resignants is Nicoley Baublies, who has been head of the union for many years.