Lufthansa Group is planning to cut up to 22,000 job due to the current pandemic, and that involves lots of negotiations with unions. If reports are to be believed, it looks like at least one union boss may be more concerned with lining his own pockets than taking care of members.
In this post:
Lufthansa union boss wants personal payment
Germany’s Welt reports that the head of Lufthansa’s flight attendant union, Nicoley Baublies, has made the current negotiations rather personal. The head of the UFO union (Unabhängige Flugbegleiter Organisation) will allegedly only agree to a rescue package if the airline pays him.
Specifically, he wants €1 million personally. The reason? For “legal costs” and “intangible losses.” Baublies himself has said that he “could neither confirm nor deny sums that were discussed in the quality procedure,” as they have “agreed not to disclose the content of the quality procedure until a solution has been reached.”
Meanwhile a representative for the airline has said that “there has never been anything like this in collective bargaining in the past decades,” and that “Mr. Baublies mixes personal issues with the legitimate interests of the union.”
The controversy surrounding Lufthansa’s union
Some may recall that in late 2019 there were a string of quasi-strikes among Lufthansa flight attendants. The company refused to recognize the strikes, though, and they ended up not having much of an impact on operations.
The reason? At the time, Lufthansa didn’t recognize the UFO’s right to bargain. The controversy with UFO comes from the fact that there were reports of corruption at the union, and there was quite a bit of internal fighting.
The union argued that Lufthansa had been using UFO’s internal issues to its advantage by trying not to recognize the union. While Lufthansa tried at the time to argue that the union didn’t have the right to strike, a court decided otherwise.
I can’t imagine this current situation restores much faith in the union either…
Bottom line
It’s being reported that the head of Lufthansa’s flight attendant union is demanding a personal payment of €1 million in exchange for agreeing to job cuts. I’m curious to see what more comes of this.
On the one hand, the UFO doesn’t exactly have the cleanest record as far as unions go (both internally and externally). On the other hand, this is low even by those standards, and one can’t help but wonder if this is almost a further effort to divide the union.
Lufthansa has used the weakness of the UFO to its advantage, and could this be another one of those situations?
@SFO ramper/@MKLDH
Unfortunately Germany has quite changed a lot in the last 20 years.
It's no longer safe as there are lots of uncultured, alien immigrants who loot, steal, rape and commit terror crimes.
German engineering is also no longer what it once was, just have a look at the BER airport which is still not open, the Volkswagen scandal etc.
And of course there is lots corruption in Germany, it's just...
@SFO ramper/@MKLDH
Unfortunately Germany has quite changed a lot in the last 20 years.
It's no longer safe as there are lots of uncultured, alien immigrants who loot, steal, rape and commit terror crimes.
German engineering is also no longer what it once was, just have a look at the BER airport which is still not open, the Volkswagen scandal etc.
And of course there is lots corruption in Germany, it's just structured different than in other countries. Google WireCard and you will find that there is no ethics left.
There are always people trying to link bribery to a country of origin, which is ridiculous.
Unfortunate article since it mixes facts with assuptions in a way which is definitely the spin of LG management. While that guy is extremely weird, he hasnt been the "boss" of UFO for quite a while (stopped being that before the pandemic hit). It would also be nice to mention that LH tried to fire him 8 times for clearly made up reasons but lost them all in court. That is where this €1mio in...
Unfortunate article since it mixes facts with assuptions in a way which is definitely the spin of LG management. While that guy is extremely weird, he hasnt been the "boss" of UFO for quite a while (stopped being that before the pandemic hit). It would also be nice to mention that LH tried to fire him 8 times for clearly made up reasons but lost them all in court. That is where this €1mio in "leagal costs" comes from. A slightly crazy demand, which has been made in January though, so again way before the pandemic...
Wow the germans are corrupt to,
I can't believe, only on the south of Europe are the one corrupt like italy Greece Spain
I guess is true the world is changing
Poor Germany
@ Andreas
Die Welt doesn't print fake news and the article cited sourced including Baublies himself. He would have outright denied it if untrue but didn't do so.
Such a shame you post fake news on your blog. You should verify your sources before posting such things. There is a statement from LH management, that this is fake news. But easy to jump on the train of fake news for clicks.
I guess in a certain way you have to hand it to the Germans: none of this dark back alley smoke filled room stuff, they demand their bribes in public.
I thought there is an English word to describe this situation - "Bribery"
Is publicly asking for bribes a thing in Germany?
Did you know Lucky that right-wingers deliberately refer to union leaders as "bosses" to suggest a mafia reference? By that logic, you should refer to all CEOs as bosses too.
It sounds like Lufty’s UFO leader is one of Donald Trump’s children.