Tripartite meeting on civil aviation seeks way out of airline crisis

GENEVA (ILO News) - An International Labour Organization (ILO) tripartite meeting on civil aviation concluded today with a call for comprehensive worldwide standards to improve airline security and protect employees as well as employers as the struggling industry seeks to recover from its worst crisis since the Second World War.

The Meeting noted that already before 11 September several airlines had already announced redundancies or had plans in place to manage the envisaged downturn of the industry. However, the employment effects of the cyclical downturn combined with the 11 September attacks resulted in the loss of approximately 400,000 jobs worldwide and are now affecting all segments of the air transportation industry - airlines, airports, air navigation services, equipment manufacturers, catering companies, parking and car rental facilities.

In addition, recruitment freezes, non-renewal of temporary contracts, voluntary early retirements, voluntary or compulsory redundancies, reduced working hours, and pay cuts or pay freezes have cost additional jobs. Most of these measures are of a temporary nature but may well last until about 2003 or until the industry takes off again.

Approximately 200 delegates representing governments, airlines and labour unions agreed on the need to find solutions to bring the industry back to stability, restore revenues and profits and continue investments in infrastructure improvement. They agreed that a critical element to any recovery is the restoration of consumer confidence.

The meeting also recognized that the effective absence of war-risk insurance came close to forcing a complete shutdown of the world's aviation system in late September 2001. Only through government intervention were a variety of stop-gap measures put into place to provide alternative coverage. Unfortunately, many of the stop-gap measures are due to expire in the coming weeks or months, notwithstanding the fact that work has not been concluded on efforts to find effective permanent substitutes.

The meeting made the following recommendations:

• Civil aviation workers and employers should enjoy the benefits of fundamental principles and rights at work, in particular the right to freedom of association and to collective bargaining.
• The role of certain categories of workers, for instance, cabin crew and ground staff, including air traffic controllers, could be strengthened through training based on harmonized global standards, taking into account International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) regulations.
• Where aviation specific protection does not exist, comprehensive occupational and safety legislation and regulations should be applicable to all civil aviation employees, including flying personnel.
• Governments should consider funding long-term training and retraining for all categories of workers as an investment in the national aviation industry. International cooperation on providing training should be encouraged.
• Governments should, through the ILO and ICAO, consider establishing minimum global harmonized standards for training of all safety- and security-sensitive aviation occupations.
• The orderly evolution in air transport services should be ensured within the framework of ICAO and of its principles of sovereignty and reciprocity, so as to facilitate the participation of all nations in the provision of and the enjoyment of economic benefits resulting from aviation services.
• In order to contribute to the development of a resilient aviation industry for the twenty-first century, appropriate, resulted-based, transparent social dialogue at the workplace, enterprise, national, regional and international levels should be encouraged.
• Governments should recognize the critical public interest role that civil aviation plays in the overall economy and afford it an appropriate place in national or regional strategic planning.

The meeting urged governments to ensure the provision of unemployment benefits, health insurance, and training and retraining for furloughed and unemployed workers; provide support (including funding) for security and insurance costs to avoid labour conditions and job cuts from being the main focus for adjustments; extend all stop-gap measures to allow sufficient time for the development of permanent solutions; ensure the independence and integrity of national aviation safety regulators; ensure that their national aviation authorities have the necessary means and resources for the effective oversight and implementation of all components of an increasingly global yet fragmented industry; in coordination with ICAO, consider the establishment of effective legal protection and remedies against violence at work for flying personnel, including a review of jurisdictional issues and establishment of safety requirements and procedures; and ensure that the fundamental workers' rights of aviation employees, including the right to privacy, are protected and respected in cases where such employees are subject to security vetting due to the sensitive nature of their employment. The meeting urged the ILO to further investigate the impact of 11 September on civil aviation in developing countries and disseminate the results; undertake, jointly with ICAO, an urgent study on the impact on employment and safety practices of the restructuring of the aviation industry; in cooperation with national governments and international organizations, collect data on employment in the industry, disaggregated by gender and minorities, where available, and disseminate the results; collect data and undertake aviation-specific occupational safety and health research in the framework of its existing programmes in this domain; promote within ICAO and other safety regulators a "human factors approach" in the security domain, which maximizes the quality of human resources, in terms of elements that impact on the performance of security and safety functions; and enhance its cooperation and collaboration with aviation safety and economic regulatory bodies, relevant international organizations, including ICAO and the international financial institutions, to promote the importance of tripartite consultation and continuous social and technical dialogue.