THE BOARD of Cyprus Airways may have made many mistakes during their term but they deserve congratulations for taking a stand over the agreement on redundancy compensations between the government and the unions. All members of the CY board submitted their resignations in protest against the government’s scandalous decision to allocate €20 million of the airline’s money to compensate staff who would take early retirement.
The board had made it quite clear that the company did not have the money while the government, which reached this deal, cannot provide the funds as it had been strongly warned by the European Commission against offering any financial support to the airline. So how did the ministers that negotiated with the unions agree to such a deal? Did they not know that the airline was on the brink of bankruptcy and did not have €20 million to pay as compensation? But even if it could raise this amount, would it not be better being used in the effort to save the company from looming closure?
It is not even as if the airline’s overpaid and underworked employees have a right to compensation that is 50 per cent higher than redundancy pay they are entitled to by law. Why is it that workers at state companies believe they are entitled to bigger redundancy pay-offs than private sector workers? Are they a higher class of worker? They certainly did not have a more taxing working life. On the contrary, the CY unions squeezed so much money out of the company in benefits, overtime and salaries for their members that the company is now, technically, bankrupt.
These privileged workers are giving one last illustration of their greed and selfishness by trying to squeeze even more money out of the company they had been plundering for decades. Worse still, the government, betraying gross populist irresponsibility, has given its approval to the costly, preferential treatment of CY staff. By what logic does the government expect a bankrupt company to give €20 million it has no legal obligation to pay in additional compensation to staff?
Surely it should have taken a position on principle - that state workers should not be treated differently from private sector workers when it came to redundancy pay. Instead we have a bankrupt state committing a bankrupt state company to pay €20 million it does not have to workers who are not entitled to it. Our economy may have collapsed but our politicians have learnt nothing from the experience and remain as irresponsible as they have always been.