To the financial crisis that the airline Viva Air is going through, which forced it to ground its fleet of planes that jumped miles of travelers throughout the country, as well as in Argentina and Peru, now adds the anxiety of its more than 1,250 employees due to the company’s decision to lay off 260 pilots and 450 flight attendants, therefore, through the Colombian Association of Civil Aviators (Acdac)) are asking the Government to intervene to take the necessary measures to protect the collaborators of said airline and prevent hundreds from being left on the street.
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according to the captain Juan Esteban Villa, president of the AcdacHe said that the company is advancing a voluntary retirement plan for this group of employees, which would be considered as something mutually agreed upon and those who take advantage of it will receive a payment for their work debts caused up to now and an additional bonus, which indicates that it will be a normal liquidation and not like the company fired you an entirely different amount.
What sounds curious for the spokesman for the pilots is that the company has called a meeting at 4 in the afternoon, to last almost until 6, and they tell those attending the meeting that they have until that time to sign the agreement. document, warning them that if they do not do so, the company will not have a way to liquidate them in the future.
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The meeting took place on February 28. and according to Captain Villa, he did not have the reception that the company expected, so the company’s directives undertook the task of calling one of the employees one by one to insist on the proposal and that they should accept it at once because it was not certain that live air I could pay them later.
In a video released on March 1, Francisco Lalinde, president of Viva Air, announced that the company’s workers had opted for continuity and that of the plant of 1,250 workers less than 200 had taken advantage of the voluntary retirement plan.
Given these circumstances, the airline’s employees will hold a sit-in in front of the airline’s facilities at this time. Civil Aeronautics (Aerocivil) in rejection of those conditions that Viva presents, but also, to ask the government authorities to intercede to avoid what they call massive layoffs.
«This is a clear intimidation on the part of the company’s managers, for which we ask that the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Transport and the Aerocivil, talk to the directors so that they cease the pressure so that the workers sign that proposed retirement plan,» said the Acdac spokesman, who said that he had found out through the media that the Ministry of Labor had not received the request to advance layoffs massive
For this reason, from the Acdac, the airline’s employees are requesting the intervention of the Government, especially now that the company is going through a complex crisis with serious effects on passengers, on whom all attention has been focused, neglecting the needs for which they are the employees of the company passing by.
However, Villa said that some meetings have been taking place in the Ministry of Labor with pilots and flight attendants, but without the presence of the minister or his vice-minister in these. He added that the sit-in this Friday is being done before the Aerocivil because it is this that issues the operating licenses of the pilots, but that they will continue to insist before the Ministry of Labor in the coming days until they obtain a response, although the adviser who attended them told them I was very worried about that situation.
The Adac director says that there is a lot of uncertainty and since last year the company has been waiting for the authorities to make a decision regarding a possible integration of Viva with another company in the market, although he insists that the sit-in that the workers are carrying out is not in that sense but to protect your employment and your rights.
Although he acknowledges that the company has so far complied with the payments of salaries and others, he insists that there is a lot of pressure on the part of the directives for them to take advantage of the proposed retirement plan and fears that the company could continue with those obligations from now on. labor.