Government shows Swissair workers a silver lining
The Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs, (Seco), has agreed to compensate Swissair employees after last year's failure of the national carrier.
However, the potential lifeline does have conditions – it depends on the success of the airline’s reduced winter flight programme and the implementation of operational cost saving measures.
Jean-Luc Nordmann, head of the Swissair Personnel Task Force at Seco, said the money to compensate employees, who were made redundant or took early retirement, would come from funds given to Swissair as part of last year’s federal bailout package.
The Swiss government provided the national flag carrier with SFr600 million ($360 million) in October 2001, following the grounding of its fleet, which left thousands of passengers stranded across the globe.
The funds were released to keep the airline flying until the regional carrier Crossair takes over Swissair’s routes in March 2002.
No immediate payouts
It will not be known immediately if any money has been saved from the federal bridging loan, but the sums should be finalised by September 2002. After this time if there is a surplus of cash, social partners will distribute it accordingly.
In the meantime, the Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, has offered to help former Swissair employees who are particularly affected. They say they are prepared to offer such workers special bridge loans as a temporary measure to cover their expenses.
The Swissair Personnel task force, which was set up by the government, has examined a number of ways to pay redundancy to former Swissair employees, but until now all have proved fruitless.
“Incentive”
Wednesday’s agreement called “Incentive” is aimed both at compensating former Swissair employees and at encouraging current employees to do a good job and present a positive face to customers.
The good news comes just a day after Bern and Solothurn decided against putting cantonal funds into the new Swiss airline.
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