Last week, aviation week was held at the ETF, where we gathered our members from JAC, GSC and ATM Committees in Brussels for their specific sector meetings, the Civil Aviation Section meeting, and the Civil Aviation Sectoral Social Dialogue.
The week marked the 1st CAS aviation meeting after ETF’s 6th Congress and was thus the perfect opportunity to get to know and welcome our new aviation members of the three sub-sections. The week was closed with our participation in the EU Social Dialogue meeting, where intense discussions were held with the representatives of the employers on crucial topics, such as gender balance and the staff shortages the aviation sector is suffering from.
Operational base versus home base, our victory on having European standards for cabin air quality, and gender equality becoming more and more a critical issue for aircrew – these were the main topics debated at JAC dedicated meeting.
How the Single European Sky II ( SES2+) file is expected to evolve under the Czech Presidency of the EU Council, updates on the dedicated Social Dialogue, updates on the ongoing collaboration with EASA on specific topics – such as EPAS or Safety Impact Assessment Technique, ASPReT, EGHD and ICB were all discussed during the ATM meeting.
At the Groud-staff Committee meeting, successful stories of good negotiations our affiliates participated in during the summer were shared by CCOO(Spain), Verdi(Germany), and FNV (The Netherlands).
And since GSC agreed on the structural problems in European Ground Handling, ETF, as a Civil Aviation Social Partner, will ask for fundamental changes in how ground handling is dealt with at the EU level.
Serious and in-depth discussions took place in the three dedicated meetings to find answers and appropriate solutions for our aviation workers working on the frontlines.
The next day, members of JAC, ATM, and GSC sub-sections gathered for their first Civil Aviation Section meeting, post-ETF Congress.
It was a good moment to catch up on what ETF has done since its previous meeting, which took place in April before the ETF Congress:
- the intense and continuous efforts ETF put into supporting our aviation affiliates to go through the summer crisis
- the support we offered our members in Ukraine since the beginning of the war
- our successful campaign on Wizz Air
- the successful September Aviation Conference
- ETF’s presence in the EU Social Dialogue
The Fit for 55 Package and the outcomes of the joint work with our affiliates on the future of sustainable aviation was also discussed, and you can find the ETF position paper on Sustainable Aviation here.
The meeting was also about taking decisions: CAS members approved the ETF statement on the future of aviation and the section’s position on performance management in the ATM sector (RP4).
ETF’s next steps as an EU partner in the Civil Aviation social dialogue were also discussed, as the activities within the ongoing projects (Med-Co and Social Dialogue) or the new ones (No Going Back and JT4Mobility), soon to be launched.
Sandrine Nikolic-Fuss (Kapers, Switzerland) was elected vice president of the ETF Civil Aviation Section. We congratulate Sandrine again and wish her good luck in the new position.
As agreed at the CAS meeting last week there is a clear action plan for the CAS members to follow for the upcoming year, and this is just the beginning of their 5-years mandate of representing and coordinating the activities of the civil aviation sector within the ETF.
Photos – Civil Aviation Section Meeting – 19/10/2022
