Why the air traffic controllers strike: what they demand and what are their demands

The secretary general of air traffic controllers called for the separation of Corpac's managers, whom he pointed out as responsible for this crisis.

General Secretary of Corpac air traffic controllers demanded several demands. Video: Channel

The Unified Union of Air Traffic Controllers of Peru (SUCTA) of the Peruvian Corporation of Airports and Commercial Aviation Sociedad Anónima (Corpac) decided to start a strike from today, Thursday, April 14, which will last until Saturday, April 16, which is impacting air transport and national and international tourism in Peru. This has forced the closure of airports in Cusco, Arequipa, Ayacucho, Trujillo and Tacna, which has caused the demand of hundreds of passengers who were going to travel for the long holiday.

Víctor Zavaleta, general secretary of air traffic controllers at Corpac, explained why this drastic measure was reached, directly blaming officials of the Ministry of Transport
and Communications (MTC) for not complying with the agreement.

“We had to come to a much more radical measure of force of this kind. Until Wednesday night we were at MTC looking for a solution, but we came up with nothing. Rather, we have seen actions against our affiliates that have motivated this radicalization of the measures,” he told Canal N.

There was also a wake-up call to Corpac officials, whom he accused of having postponed the “labor rights”i/i of air power station workers.

“We have to strike at this time because we have been silent workers throughout the pandemic. We have maintained domestic air traffic when sea and land traffic was restricted. At that time we had been working 24 hours to sustain national air traffici,/i” he added.

Zavaleta said that there were minutes already signed with Corpac officials that, so far, have not been complied with, so they have had to reach this measure. According to the general secretary of this sector, both President Pedro Castillo and Minister Nicolás Bustamante tried to intercede to reach an agreement, but they did not succeed.

“We were waiting for Corpac officials at MTC. They told us that they had gone, they never contacted us and they withdrew. There was a willingness of the union to settle this because of the situation in the country, but we cannot allow Corpac to continue to deal with this problem,” he insisted.

CLAIMS

Zavaleta explained what are the points that are not being met and why they are demanding that Corpac officials make the agreements because otherwise the strike will continue.

“We have an agreement, which we had to be recognized for the work on the 31st that was not fulfilled in 2016. Besides, we have an arbitral award that was already clear, but Corpac did not want to apply it to a group of our workers,” he said.

In addition, he stated that he also has a December record that was not complied with and that, although Corpac tried to execute because of the strike, “it has not been fully complied with”.

“We are calling for the separation of managers responsible for this whole crisis,” he added.

Zavaleta apologized to those affected by the closure of airports, but he hopes that passengers will consider that “we have served the country all this time and strikes are taking place at this time so that they know that there are people who take care of their safety throughout the year, but there is no recognition from the authorities”.

The general secretary of Corpac air traffic controllers said that only emergency flights such as “medical and humanitarian evacuation” will be attended to.

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