Travel The English Court has raised a collective dismissal for 620 employees in the corporate area and temporary employment regulation files (ertes) for a year of a maximum of 60% for those in the vacation area and corporate travel, as well as up to 40% for central services. This was detailed this Tuesday by the majority Professional Travel Union (Fasga-SPV) after the first meeting between the company and the unions took place, which means the start of the negotiation, with the constitution of the negotiating table.
The company’s proposal establishes that the technology area teams will not be affected by the measures proposed for the entire El Corte Inglés travel subsidiary, which has nearly 4,600 employees and that they are in the process of merging with Logitravel.
“We will focus our attention on learning about and assessing the Company’s Viability Plan and minimizing the scope of the proposed measures”, assures the aforementioned majority union, which has detailed that the following meetings will take place on February 11, 15, 17 and 21 .
industry crisis
Travel agencies are one of the sectors most affected by the crisis unleashed in tourism due to the outbreak of the pandemic and it is also one of the sectors that continues to make the most use of the ertes that were expressly designed as a result of this crisis. This type of ertes allows the company not to have to take charge of all the social security contributions of its employees, provided that they maintain the commitment not to undertake layoffs until at least six months after their conclusion.
In principle, this type of furlough ends on February 28, so the sector is moving to design other types of measures that allow them to adjust the workforce that they have in operation to the reality of their business, which has been greatly damaged by travel reduction.
This same Tuesday, the Spanish Confederation of Travel Agencies (CEAV) has requested that the validity of the “ertes covid” be extended beyond February 28, making the employment maintenance clause more flexible.
Billing below 50%
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In a meeting with the General Director of Labor, Verónica Martínez, the CEAV representatives wanted to make it clear to her that the agencies cannot resume activity normally in the absence of this type of ertes, recalling that their turnover is still below 50 % compared to 2019. In a note, CEAV -which brings together some 5,000 agencies- recalls that despite the dynamism of national tourism, the return to activity of agencies is being slower because they depend more on the issuing segment, on the congress and events, and business.
The agency sector still has 29% of its employees in ERTE (10,792 people in January), more than triple the next most affected sector, air transport, according to their data. At the same time, the agencies defend the need for the employment maintenance clause to be made more flexible to help the viability of companies. If the validity of the ertes is not extended, they demand a transitory mechanism to negotiate other files for productive reasons.