Swissport axes 3,000 jobs after ‘refusing’ to access furlough scheme
Baggage handler Swissport is making 3,000 employees redundant after refusing to put them on furlough, according to a leading union.
There was a wave of redundancies ahead of the 31 December deadline for the furlough scheme, which sees the government pay 80 per cent of employees’ wages.
The Chancellor Rishi Sunak belatedly extended the scheme until March following the announcement of a second lockdown in England.
The GMB Union claims the Swissport redundancies were announced before the extension and “were based on flight scheduling predictions before hopes of a successful vaccine were announced”.
The aviation industry has been buoyed by news of two effective vaccines in the past week with hope that international travel could return by the spring.
GMB said it had written to Swissport to request that employees earmarked for redundancy be put on furlough instead. “The company refused, citing delays to the furlough announcement and lack of clarity over the application of the scheme as reasons for not accessing it,” GMB said.
“This is a devastating blow for thousands of our members… Thousands are now facing the prospect of a joyless Christmas with no job thanks to Swissport’s intractable attitude,” said Nadine Houghton, GMB National Officer.
It comes after the baggage handler announced 4,175 job cuts over the summer, which GMB and Unite described as “devastating news”. Today Swissport said it had reduced the figure to 2,020 compulsory redundancies and 1,181 voluntary redundancies.
Swissport today said it would be using th efurlough scheme for colleagues due to return to work this month, but cannot make use of it for the compulsory redundancies.
“Sadly we know the level of flight volumes necessary to make these jobs viable doesn’t exist right now. We are facing several years of difficult recovery and we must focus on the jobs we have managed to mitigate in order to remain a stable and reliable partner,” a spokesperson said.
Unite national officer Oliver Richardson said the decision was a “hammer blow” and the decision not to use the job retention scheme was “simply wrong”.
“While Unite and its members are bitterly disappointed with Swissport’s action, much of the blame must go to the government which announced the extension of the furlough scheme at the last possible minute, when employers had already begun the redundancy process and the lack of an aviation-specific support package which it first promised in March,” he added.