Staff at DHL’s European airline subsidiary EAT are back at work after a strike lasting several daysover the redundancy terms for 180 workers who are losing their jobs due to the airline’s ongoing
transfer from Brussels to Leipzig.Under the transfer plans, DHL Express will relocate EAT, which has some 600 employees atBrussels airport, from its former European hub to the new Leipzig facility by the end of this year.Pilots operating the fleet of 29 planes will move to Leipzig but about 180 Belgian ground staffwill lose their positions, and only about 40-50 administrative staff will remain in Brussels.
Following several months of negotiations, EAT pilots and ground staff took strike action onAugust 5 to press for better social plans for 180 dismissed staff, the European Transport WorkersFederation (ETF) and UNI Europe unions announced. The company had not been ready to offer more thanthe basic legal minimum despite the company’s collective agreement, it said.
Some pilots joined the strike action on August 6, affecting flight operations, according toBelgian media. Although they are not directly affected by the restructuring, they reportedly alsofear for their future status. As part of the strike action, the unions had called on other DHL hubsnot to handle goods transferred from Brussels.
After several rounds of negotiations, the striking ground handling staff returned to worklast Monday (August 10) after the company’s management agreed to review the redundancy terms andagreed to pay two additional months’ worth of redundancy pay, Belgian media reported.
