ENAIRE withdraws the sanctions filed against 61 air traffic controllers in Barcelona due to tge closure of the airspace in 2010
.- Barcelona Labour Court has delivered 11 judgements repealing and annulling the disciplinary sanctions that the company filed against its controllers in March 2015, after the penal cause for the same events was closed.
.- Justice rejects the allegations by Enaire that the controllers abandoned their working positions on the 3rd December 2010.
.- USCA hopes that this change in the attitude of the provider, aligned with the resolutions of 20 court rooms that also closed the penal causes against controllers, is also reflected in the two cases that remain open in Madrid and Baleares.
Madrid, 13 th June 2016.
ENAIRE has withdrawn the sanctions filed against 61 Barcelona ACC (Gavá) air traffic controllers due to the closure of the airspace in 2010, after 11 Labour Court resolutions rejected the accusations made by the company.
After Criminal Court of Gavá closed the penal case, stating that the controllers hadn’t abandoned their working positions, Enaire filed these administrative sanctions against 61 workers for the very same events.
The company has sent these controllers a communiqué in which we read “seeing the court resolutions regarding other air traffic controllers that were sanctioned due to the same events” they have decided “to withdraw the sanction of one month without pay that had been imposed”.
The last court resolution, from the Labour Court nr. 16 of Barcelona, argues that “the formal requisites were not met, and the fault, abandonment of the service, was wrongly typified” so the sanction is annulled and the controller must have his salary back.
Regarding the time limit, it is explained how the events took place on the 3rd December 2010 and the sanction was notified in 2015. This exceeds the 60 days established in the Workers’ Statutes for very serious faults, and even the three years established by the Civil Servants’ Statutes, and reminds that “the Administration must take into account facts which are deemed as proven in any court case resolution”
The sentence also points out that, in ENAIRE’s letter, the fault is typified as “abandonment of the working position by contributing to the consolidation of the collective alteration of the control regime in Gavá Centre”, when the collective agreement understands “abandonment of the service, when the traffic is left to their fate…”
In this sense, it reminds that the facts derived from the closure of the airspace, as it was established in the 2014 court resolution, “are not imputable, either directly or indirectly, to the accused in the penal case, since these facts were a consequence of a unilateral decision taken by the only ones capable to do so, that is, AENA”
USCA wishes that Enaire’s decision to withdraw these sanctions reveals a change of attitude that is further reflected in the penal causes that remain open in Madrid and Baleares, which will hopefully be closed as it has already happened in 20 other courtrooms, where it was proven that air traffic controllers did not abandon their working positions on the 3rd December 2010.
