At Munich Airport, plans for large-scale downsizing are progressing.
1500 employees are to leave the airport through volunteer programs.
Munich - If you take the S-Bahn to the airport, you already suspect the crisis the airport group FMG is in.
There is no trace of air travelers who otherwise always block the aisles of the train with suitcases.
Instead: Free choice of seats in empty four-seater seating groups.
The “lockdown light” hit the airport even more blatantly than the management level around airport boss Jost Lammers thought possible.
The number of flights fell by over 63 percent in 2020, last week it was as much as 84 percent.
No wonder the airport wants to cut costs - among other things by downsizing.
For a long time the airport kept under the covers about how many places it should be concerned.
The figure of 20 percent reported by our newspaper (with almost 10,000 employees in the Munich Airport Group as a whole) was denied.
The management has now announced in an employee information sheet that it intends to encourage more than 1,500 employees to leave via volunteer programs.
Further programs in individual branches of the company, for example at Aerogate, are to be expected
620 handlers on the cross-off list
620 people are employees of the handler Aeroground with short periods of employment - only came from 2018. Many are foreign workers, and their job is often linked to a residence permit.
You should either accept a severance payment along with a “sprinter bonus” for a quick decision or go to a transfer company to seek a job change.
As reported, the airport is promoting retraining, for example, to become a subway driver or post office driver.
Another 900 older employees (“age groups close to retirement”) are to retire voluntarily.
The question is: who is getting involved?
Works council Krüger
Ralf Krüger, Verdi works council at FMG, is rather skeptical.
“The question now is: how many are willing to accept it.” Older workers who go now have to take into account that they will accumulate fewer years of pension contributions.
Works councilor Orhan Kurtulan also says: “Everyone has to decide for themselves.” Short-time work until the end of 2021 has just been agreed at the airport - this in any case rules out dismissals.
Even after that, there is a safeguard: an emergency collective agreement that Verdi has just negotiated with other unions and the airports at the federal level (we reported).
However, it provides for a reduction in weekly working hours and wages - one reason why Kurtulan rejects him.
He even tells the airport not to apply the contract.
At the airport, Aeroground employees already have a restructuring collective agreement with a wage waiver.
Works council Krüger, however, defends the emergency collective agreement.
"We were able to rule out that employees would have to bleed profusely."
Munich is not alone in downsizing: “Relaunch 50” has started at Frankfurt Airport, and 4,000 jobs are to be cut.
Düsseldorf does not even rule out redundancies for operational reasons.
