On February 11th 2010, the Chamber of Deputies made the decision of validating the Real Decreto Ley 1/2010 de 5 de febrero (BOE Nº 43 y 32, respectively), generally known as “the decree of controllers”. This regulation has two main objectives. On the one hand, taking steps in order to make possible for new suppliers/providers to render aerial navigation, what releases this sector, while on the other hand, modifying some labour conditions from AENA’s air traffic controllers.

In relation to the labour measures, four of them should be highlighted: a) suspending the right to obtain a special paid license for three years and, consequently, the impossibility of stopping work at the age of fifty two, when continuing to earn an ordinary salary until the age of the retirement; b) establishing the working day, including the breaks and the duty services in 1,750 hours; c) conferring competences on AENA to decide on the temporary trip of their workers outside work, as it is established in the worker’s statute, while there is no other collective agreement, (this will carry some restrictions to the state workers affected by these measures). AENA has also competences to change the working day because of its own needs or variations in the timetables, modifying the starting time, the work permits, holiday periods and other issues; d) AENA is permitted to contract new controllers through any of the contractual headings from the ET.

Certainly, from the point of view of workers in relation to these types of rules, the first reaction is to refuse them, as it substitutes the collective agreement carried out by the Government. However, this situation can be changed because of the particular moment when it was dictated. In fact, we are in a sector in which the workers are fighting for their rights notably, much more than what the employers/management is doing, in a moment when the deferral in the collective agreement has given the aerial controllers quite a privileged benefit.

The main problem has been caused by the increasing cost of paying extra hours, which is 2,65 times more than the ordinary hour (accepted by the aerial controllers in several extraestatutarios pacts, which have not been incorporated to the collective agreement, nor authorized by the LPGE though). Actually, these are extra working hours. Although the agreement says that they are 1200 annually, 1800 are done on the contrary. The consequence has been the following: aerial controllers earned up to 304.874 euro in 2007, exceeding that of 210.316 euro in 1999, since which the annual IPC had been updated. (While the President of the TS, the person who earns the most in this sector, will receive 146.000 euro in 2010; the President of the State will just earn around 92.000 euro).

With this Decree, the amount of ordinary hours is agreed to 1,750, with 80 the maximum number for extra hours (art. 35 ET). This fact decreases its remuneration to 200.000 euro. It seems that the Decree has helped in the negotiation, but the generalization of exceptions, like this one, can damage itself and lead it to unconstitutional issues.