This Tuesday, the flight attendants filed a complaint with the European Commission against the Ministry of Equality led by Irene Montero for “discrimination.”. They report that almost 80% of flight crews are women, and that they are discriminated against pilots and mechanics – mostly men – by not having access to early retirement. This would contradict articles 20, 21 and 23 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and 2 and 3 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which set the principle of equality and non-discrimination based on sex.
The complaint was filed by the independent airline cabin crew union (Sitpla), presented by the lawyer Juan Ignacio Navas.
«Directive 2006/54/EC understands direct discrimination as a practice that harms people of different sexes. This is the case, there is the same difficulty but a different treatment between most male and female groups,” explained Navas to THE OBJECTIVE.
The group is considered excluded by the Ministry of Equality, which boasts of working towards gender equality.. Sitcpla criticizes the participation of the air passenger cabin crew (TCP), where there are 8,000 women serving in this country, from the scale envisaged by the Royal Decree of 1986 where the reductions are applied to the minimum years of contribution to access a full pension. . He considered it a comparative complaints in relation to other groups of professionals in the aviation sector, such as pilots, aerial photographers or flight mechanics who can access this reduced coefficients.
The Air Navigation Law of 1960 included TCPs as part of the flight crew, but the traditional casual nature of these positions made it difficult to accumulate years in a professional career marked, moreover, by hard work. Sitcpla emphasized this morning that the Spanish Judiciary “did not do its homework properly,” and equipped itself with representation in the office Navas and Cousins to bring this war to the heart of the European Union.
They feel neglected
“The differences in pressure, the continuous change of schedule and temperature, the musculoskeletal injuries, the statistics of vulnerability to some diseases of TCPs cannot be ignored even for one more minute by the Administration,” stated the representatives of the worker. through a statement. about the difficulty of completing long races.
Aware that successive governments have neglected this old demand, the union points to reports from various universities about the vulnerability of female crew members to suffering from oncological diseases. And remember that In France, 25 years of contribution is enough for flight attendants to have access to 100% of the pension..
In this country, different judgments have been given in this regard, without a unified doctrine, so Sitcpla requested before the EU institutions that the TCPs be included in the mentioned Royal Decree of 1986, “as provided by usual itself.” In short, for the union, the legislation of the European Union is “clear and categorical”: any sign of direct or indirect discrimination based on sex must be rejected from the legal systems of the member states this.
