Violent Air France Protest Provokes Union and Management Action
In an October 9 email to its customers, Air France attempted to ameliorate concerns regarding recent violent employee protests against the corporation’s management. “Be confident,” CEO Frédéric Gagey stated in the email, noting that the “violence was the work of isolated individuals and [does] not reflect the reality nor the ambition of your company.”
Gagey’s email referred to events on October 5, when 100 protesters violently stormed a senior management meeting, attacking and tearing the shirts off several executives. The protests were in response to Air France’s plans to cut 2,900 jobs and 10% of its long-haul flights over the next two years -- part of an ongoing cost-cutting strategy by the airline, which is facing increased competition from European budget airlines and heavily subsidized Persian Gulf airlines.
Gagey’s note that the incident was “isolated” reflects his sentiment that the violence does not represent the entirety of the airline’s employees or their unions, of which most employees are members. Many union leaders, however, see this rhetoric as purposely inflammatory and in line with management’s strategy to divide the unions, thus weakening their unified bargaining power. These union leaders also point to the uneven distribution of job cuts as evidence of management flame fanning; the proposed cuts would reduce ground staff by 1,700, compared to 900 cabin crew and 300 pilot job cuts, which many ground staff members see as exceptionally unfair.
However, some note that such a distribution of job cuts may simply be intrinsic to airline layoffs -- flights can continue with fewer ground staff or cabin crew employees, but they cannot continue without pilots to fly the planes. The “incompressible” nature of pilot jobs, as some leaders have called them, leaves pilot unions in a position of power. This conundrum has been noted by François Pottecher, a leader in the leading pilots’ union, SNPL, who says that favoritism towards pilots makes further unity more difficult.
While many believe that the violence bodes well for Air France’s management’s supposed strategy to aggravate inter-union relations, unions have actually been united in condemning the violence. Even though all six of the employees arrested on October 12 for their involvement in the protest were members of the CGT union (which represents mostly non-pilot employees), CGT joined SNPL in an unprecedented call for unity. Véronique Damon, SNPL’s general secretary, said, “Contrary to last year, and even if it’s not exactly our manner, we have tried this time to create the conditions for an effective cross-union [approach].”
Now, in light of recent partnerships between unions, many union advocates feel that the French government could be more effective in fostering union-management cooperation. Though France’s Socialist government has been historically accommodative to union demands, the current government’s 17% ownership stake in Air France has been slow in its response to the recent protests. The government has avoided partiality to either side, and responded with messages of French solidarity: “When Air France is in shock, it’s all of France that is in shock,” Prime Minister Manual Valls remarked recently.
Given the recent trend to no-frills air travel and a resulting cost-cutting drive by Air France, continuing to offer a “high quality product,” as Gagey promised in his email, may become more difficult for the airline. As displayed on October 5, maintaining a civil employee-management relationship will prove difficult as well.