The festive season begins with Geneva airport workers on strike over a wage dispute with their employer, Dubai National Air Travel Agency.
Dnata employees started the strike at 4 am to demand “dignified working conditions and working wages,” the SSP public sector union said on X.
About 80 strikers gathered in front of the airport wearing bright yellow safety waistcoats and carrying trade union flags and placards that read: “Dnata is killing me” and “Precarious work means grounded flights.”
The airport acknowledged that the work stoppage delayed flights during the Christmas rush as three flights, two of them intercontinental and long-haul, were delayed early Sunday, airport spokesman Ignace Jeannerat said.
The workers are demanding that Emirates-based airport service provider Dnata increase their salaries by five percent. Additionally, the company should also provide a bonus for some physically demanding jobs and extra pay for night and Sunday work, but Dnata has not agreed but has offered a three per cent pay rise and also agreed to drop a controversial plan to cut pension fund contributions, but this has not been enough to satisfy the workers.
Dnata spokesman Alexander Koenig said 20minutes that the company remained “determined to find an agreement” but noted it would regard any work stoppage to be “illegal.”
