Swiss cabin crew agree to new collective labor agreement
Published: Wednesday, Dec 20th 2023, 14:01
Retour au fil d'actualité
The long negotiations for better working conditions for Swiss flight attendants have now finally been concluded: The social partners have clearly accepted the new collective labor agreement (CLA). This brings the negotiations with cabin crew and pilots to an end - but agreement with ground staff is still pending.
The cabin crew union Kapers voted 79% in favor of the new conditions, as Swiss announced on Wednesday. The new collective labor agreement can therefore enter into force on January 1, 2024.
Under the new contract, on-board staff will receive an additional CHF 400 per month in basic salary, higher expenses and additional options for remuneration. In addition, schedules will be published earlier and new part-time models will be introduced. The airline will incur additional costs of CHF 200 million over the next five years as a result.
CLA initially rejected
The old CLA would have expired at the end of April 2024. At the end of last year, Swiss and Kapers agreed on a new CLA. However, this was rejected by union members in a vote at the beginning of the year.
In May of this year, the Kapers members voted in favor of terminating the existing CLA. Negotiations were then resumed and Swiss met further demands. In October 2023, the two parties then signed a letter of intent for the CLA that is now in force.
Great approval among pilots
Negotiations with the pilots were also successfully concluded: The members of the Aeropers pilots' association approved the new CLA in January 2023 with a clear majority of 87%.
The pilots and Swiss have agreed on a wage increase of 2.3 percent, an inflation adjustment of 2 percent, a postponement of the publication of the work schedule by one week and no more schedule changes after illness.
No agreement with ground staff
Swiss' wage negotiations with its ground staff, on the other hand, have failed. The talks were broken off in November. At the time, the airline's management announced that it would implement unilateral wage measures. These provide for an average wage increase of 2 percent for all ground staff covered by the CLA.
For the social partners, this did not go far enough: the wage measures imposed by the airline would not even cover inflation, argued the transport workers' union.
©Keystone/SDA
French 
English 
German 
Spanish 
Arabic