A court ruling annulled the reinstatement of three pilots fired from Aerolíneas Argentinas for refusing to return rented planes

The unionist Pablo Biró and the APLA union suffered this Monday a judicial setback when Chamber 3 of the Labor Chamber revoked a precautionary measure that urged the reinstatement of three pilots who were fired from Argentine Airlines for refusing to take planes to the United States when a lease contract expired.

It was in a divided ruling, where Judge Diana Cañal voted in favor of maintaining the precautionary measure, while her peers Alejandro Perugini and Mario Fara decided to revoke it, according to the opinion to which she agreed. Clarion.

The three flight commanders of the state company, by union mandate in a conflict that remains open between the aeronautical and the Government, had refused to make trips without passengers whose purpose was the return of two Embraer aircraft.

The planes were rented and if their return was not fulfilled, Aerolíneas Argentinas would suffer fines of 26 thousand dollars. In fact, the company turned to Brazilian pilots on September 18 to return the plane with registration LV-GBK.

The three pilots They claimed a union mandate to refuse to make the ferry flights, that is, without passengers, which was scheduled to be returned to a “lessor”, which is what is called in the jargon the companies that own fleets of aircraft that in turn rent to the lines aerial. In parallel, the union APLA took a measure of force that affected flights with passage.

Given the refusal, Airlines reported that They would dismiss the three pilots due to the economic damage that produced his decision not to fly. The Biró union took the issue to court and got protection in his favor in October, from Judge Stella Maris Vulcano, who ordered Aerolíneas Argentinas to “within 24 hours of being notified of this, proceed with the provisional reinstatement in his job.” The firm appealed.

Without failing on the bottom of the issue – the dismissal of the pilots – the court of appeal revoked that measure which required preventive reinstatement. Company sources confirmed the ruling to Clarion but they avoided definitions about the effectuation of the same and the situation of the former employees, the pilots Walter Rodolfo Schonfeld, Javier Eduardo Weledniger y Carlos Diego Sepliarsky.

For Judge Cañal, there was verisimilitude in the right of workers dismissed due to their participation in union activities, which is protected by the National Constitution. According to her, the dismissal apparently had elements of “union discrimination”which justified a precautionary measure. Along the same lines, he maintained that the loss of employment and salary of the pilots justified the measure.

On the other hand, the judge Perugians he thought that the cause invoked for dismissal no was directly related to union issues and had to be evaluated in a more exhaustive process. He also pointed out that none of the dismissed workers were covered by articles 40, 48 and 50 of the regime of union associations (Law 23,551).

Ferafor his part, adhered to Perugini’s position and considered that had not been tested sufficiently the plausibility of the right nor the danger in the delay that justify the precautionary.

“I understand that The factual and legal reasons invoked do not allow plausibility to be considered established in the required law, which takes away the importance of a particular and detailed examination of a possible danger in the delay, and thus concurrency is not verified of the two requirements that must be present in these cases,” stated the judge.

This Monday, A strike by Aerolíneas Argentinas pilots forced the company to cancel 26 domestic flights, in a complex scenario due to the bad weather conditions of the last few hours. The conflict between the company and the workers made the AA itself decide this Monday morning to suspend the joint negotiations.

Aerolíneas Argentinas informed the unions AAA -crew-, APA -ramp and check-in- and APLA -pilots- that suspended the summons for joint meetings until forceful measures are withdrawn that have a direct impact on passengers.

The company had resumed talks with these unions last Thursday, a negotiation that had not made progress for more than two months. Senior officials from the transportation area and the Chief of Staff participated in that meeting along with the general secretaries of the unions in conflict.

The meeting, which was called public and insistently by Pablo Biró himselfhad the objective of advance a solution that would avoid greater damages to Aerolíneas Argentinas passengers. Then, on Friday, technical meetings were held at the company’s corporate building and follow-up meetings were scheduled for this week.

“However, even in this context of reopening work tables, the APLA union made the decision to cause the cancellation of four international flights long-range flights that were scheduled for this last weekend,” Aerolíneas said in a statement.

The company explained that the company representatives had expressly mentioned the situation of those flights and asked the union to protect the passengers. “Despite having the tools to avoid these cancellations, from APLA there was a clear lack of interest and will in making those flights operate,” they noted.

And they maintained that “this irresponsible provocation by the APLA authorities shows that the salary conflict is an excuse for the union authorities – not for its members – to give a personal political battle. And in this act, they dragged out the possibility of continuing any type of exchange with the other unions despite their willingness to continue the talks.”

According to the company, APLA’s decision directly affected 2,178 passengers who were scheduled flights to Cancun, Miami, Rome and Madrid, and had to be relocated with other itineraries.