State agent Jeroen Kremers writes this in a letter to the Senate. Among other things, he questions the new collective labor agreement for pilots. The pilots receive money in this, while the KLM staff had to give up considerably as a condition for state support in corona time. When arranging that wage sacrifice, the pilots were the bitten, because they did not want to surrender for a long time. As a result, support for KLM, 3.4 billion euros in government loans and guarantees, even came to a halt until the pilots finally gave in.
But their new collective labor agreement ‘does not meet the conditions’, writes Kremers, who indicates that it is also still being discussed internally: “The pilots have been discussing this collective labor agreement and this collective labor agreement was ultimately not approved by the pilots. It remains to be seen where this discussion will lead and whether or not the working conditions of pilots meet the support conditions in 2022 and beyond.”
raised eyebrows
A general wage increase for KLM staff of about 5 percent also raises eyebrows at Kremers. “The state agent was not informed about this in advance,” he writes. Nor has KLM substantiated that this increase meets the conditions of the support package. It now appears that this is not the case, and without further measures KLM will not meet the conditions regarding moderation of the employment conditions in 2022.”
Kremers also questions KLM’s approach to tax avoidance by pilots. They often live in countries with attractive tax rates and are then allowed to fly to Schiphol for free to go to work. A working group with pilots within KLM would work on an approach to this, but according to the state agent, little has come of this: “In May it turned out that this working group had been discontinued without any action. Proposals of concrete measures are pending. The violation of this aid condition, which has now been going on for almost two years, has not yet come to an end.”
The strong admonition from state agent Kremers comes at a time when the Dutch State wants to make the cut again for Air France KLM. Minister Kaag (Finance) is prepared to invest more than 200 million euros in a share buyback to maintain the Dutch interest in the company. But the Senate and House of Representatives still have to give the green light for this this week.