Alitalia Staff to Strike Over Pay Cut, Toilet Cleaning Duties

The action was announced as the ailing airline revealed a host of initiatives designed to slash costs and bolster savings.

It has been revealed that cabin crew at Alitalia, Italy’s national carrier, will go on strike at the end of February. The planned action comes just as the airline announced a range of cost-saving measures, including one that would see staff cleaning plane lavatories.

The Telegraph reports that this practice is commonplace among Alitalia’s short-haul crew, but the introduction of this policy across those working the carrier’s long-haul fleet has proved to be unpopular. Proposed crew duties will include cleaning the lavatories as well as the re-stocking of toilet paper and soap.

Times are tough for the beleaguered carrier. In December 2016, the airline managed to secure a short-term finance deal from its creditors. This was given on the condition that it finalize an overhaul plan with its stakeholders within 60 days.

At the time, it also countered reports that it would cut 2,000 jobs in line with the overhaul plan, but was forced to admit that it needed to find a workforce that was “the right size, right shape” for its business.

Speaking in December, the carrier’s chief executive Cramer Ball was quoted by the paper as saying, “The next two months are critical for Alitalia. It is vitally important that the airline’s workforce and major stakeholders, such as corporate partners, suppliers and unions, embrace and accept the radical changes we need in order to gain the next round of significant funding from our shareholders, which will be crucial for our future.”

“Everyone has to pull in the same direction to make Alitalia a viable, sustainable success story and help the airline achieve its ambition of long-term growth and profitability,” he said.

These new crew duties appear to be part of Alitalia’s cost-cutting measures and the airline is also asking its unions to accept a cut in pay and vacation time. The labor bodies representing staff have called the requests “inadmissible.”

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