The National Civil Aviation Flight Personnel Union (SNPVAC) said that its officials have not signed the memorandum with the government because its members do not accept that TAP should be privatisated and the document does not give any guarantees to workers.
"The union has not signed this memorandum because it lacked guarantees. This document presumes that the privatisation will go ahead, which we do not accept," according to the vice president of SNPVAC, Nuno Fonseca.
The union said that the Government is carrying on with the TAP privatisation and the memorandum signed with nine of the twelve TAP unions only covers operational and employment issues, not the big question over privatisation.
The SNPVAC was one of three unions that maintained its strike for between Christmas and New Year but has carried on working due to the government’s deployment of a civil requisition order.
"It's a strike that had no practical effects on TAP’s operations, but it served to stir consciences and to highlight the importance of keeping TAP, which must not be sold," said Nuno Fonseca.
On Wednesday, the government agreed to discuss with the unions a proposed sale condition ‘to keep TAP in Portugal for ten years after the privatisation of the company.’
This condition was contained in the memorandum signed by the government and the nine TAP unions that pulled out of the strike, leaving the three that did not.
The unions in accord said this agreement with the government was "an act of responsibility and a safeguard for the future." The three remaining unions disagree.
The decision to relaunch the TAP privatisation process, suspended after a lamentable shambles in 2012, has sparked a wave of union opposition culminating in a strike by all 12 of the TAP unions, to which the government responded with the imposition of a civil requisition to minimize the impact. All but three unions returned to work.
Binding union agreements at this late stage in the TAP sales process will not be helpful and are likely further to depress the offer price, should anyone still wish to bid for an airline that is becoming so tied up in terms and conditions of sale as to render it inoperable in private hands.
