In the name of airline catering workers in Europe, European Transport Workers’ Federation and EFFAT European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions provided input to an EC merger control case this week with the help of our US colleagues from UNITE HERE! and Teamsters.
The case relates to Lufthansa selling its European operations of LSG catering group to Gategroup last year. We believe that, if approved, this merger would result in a situation where one single company would dominate the airline catering market, and other companies would have no capacity to compete on an equal footing.
Such a situation can have different adverse effects on workers, as the new entity would have the power to artificially hold down wages in the sector for large numbers of workers, degrading labour standards!
We appeal to the European Commission to investigate the case further and not to allow the creation of one giant airline catering business dominating the market.
The ETF joined other trade unions in opposing the merger last year – you can read more about it here.