with the employer

Yesterday at a press conference at the Interfax-South agency, the chairman of the trade union committee of the Air Navigation of the South, Yuri Batagov, said that air traffic controllers working in the Southern Federal District will not participate in the all-Russian protest action scheduled for August 13, 2003. According to him, the company’s employees obtained from the employer the conclusion of a collective agreement, which already took into account their basic requirements. The main demand of the all-Russian protest action of air traffic controllers, scheduled for August 13, is the extension of collective agreements in connection with the reorganization of the FSUE State Corporation for Air Traffic Management. As Yuri Batagov reported, air traffic controllers in the south of Russia have no reason to participate in the strike, since on August 6 of this year the management of the Air Navigation of the South and representatives of trade unions signed a collective agreement covering the period from September 1, 2003 to December 31, 2005. At the same time, the employer agreed with the workers’ proposals, stipulating that they would not participate in the protest on August 13.

As the general director of Air Navigation of the South, Valery Gorbenko, who also participated in the press conference, said, the development of a new collective agreement in Rostov began after the merger of three subsidiaries of the FSUE State Corporation for Air Traffic Management in the Russian Federation, which served the airspace of the Southern Federal District: Volgograd Aeronavigation ", "Kavkazaeronavigatsiya" and "North Caucasus Center for Automated Air Traffic Control "Strela". The main demands of the workers were taken into account in the agreement signed on August 6, and a specially created conciliation commission is now dealing with the settlement of remaining issues. At the same time, Valery Gorbenko does not exclude the possibility that the collective agreement will soon have to be revised again. The fact is that, in accordance with federal legislation, the State Corporation for Air Traffic Management must carry out a reorganization, after which its subsidiaries (21 units) will be transformed into branches, which means they will lose the status of legal entities and will not be able to have their own collective contracts

Such prospects do not cause optimism for the head of the trade union committee of Air Navigation of the South, Yuri Batagov. In his opinion, working conditions in different regions of Russia are so different that when concluding a single collective agreement it will not be possible to meet the deadlines allotted by labor legislation, and the final document “will look like an encyclopedia.”

At the same time, the general director and chairman of the trade union committee of Air Navigation of the South, who spoke at the press conference, spoke in favor of revising the tariffs at which dispatchers provide services to airlines. As Valery Gorbenko reported, currently dispatching services in Russia account for about 2% of the cost of an air ticket, and abroad this share is usually 7-8%. As a result, according to him, fees for services in the area of airfields (support for takeoffs and landings) do not correspond to the costs of air traffic controllers, so this work has to be financed by servicing transit flights. In addition, according to the speakers, domestic airlines use reduced tariffs: depending on the type of aircraft, from 38 to 240 rubles per 100 km of escort. At the same time, rates for foreign aviators range from $40 to $90.

ALEXEY BEZUGLY

Kommersant (Rostov) No. 143 from 08/13/2003, p. 12

Air traffic controllers in southern Russia have agreed