Pay settlement for air-traffic controllers ends flight delays

A new pay settlement for Swedish air-traffic controllers was concluded in October 1998. The agreement, which provides for a pay increase of 11.6% spread over three years, was finalised following delays and cancellations of flights at Swedish airports.

Approximately 500 Swedish air-traffic controllers gained a new pay settlement on 6 October 1998. The parties to the agreement were the Swedish Board of Civil Aviation (Luftfartsverket) and the Union of Civil Servants (Statstjänstemannaförbundet, ST). The agreement resulted in pay increases of 11.6% spread over three years, with most of the increases at the beginning of the period. The most qualified and experienced controllers at Arlanda airport in Stockholm and at the national air-traffic centres received the largest pay increases.

The agreement ended a period of air-traffic delays and cancellations at Swedish airports. As the negotiations were local negotiations on the application of the central collective agreement for civil servants, industrial action was not permitted. However, during the final stages of the negotiations many more air-traffic controllers than usual reported sick. The employer claimed that this was a form of blackmail to circumvent the legal restrictions on strike action. The air-traffic controllers and their union refuted these allegations, claiming that the fact that many of them fell ill was a "natural result of their stressful working conditions and because they were understaffed".

The understaffing is an undisputed fact, and is itself partly a result of the low levels of pay, according to the air-traffic controllers. Average monthly earnings before the negotiation of the new agreement was SEK 28,000 which, according to the air-traffic controllers, was half the salary enjoyed by their counterparts in many other European countries, and well below the levels of Norway and Denmark. As a result, many air traffic controllers have left Sweden for employment in other European countries, as well as South Africa, where pay levels are higher. The air-traffic controllers believed that this exodus would continue unless pay levels were increased substantially.

The Swedish Board of Civil Aviation agrees that air-traffic controllers in other European countries earn more, but it stated that it was more realistic to compare the earnings of air-traffic controllers with those of other employees in Sweden.