New layoffs at Frankfurt airport
Among workers hit by mass layoffs in Germany’s air transport industry, employees of WISAG were among the first to react. At Frankfurt Airport, dozens went on hunger strike in February. They have protested there every week since against their illegitimate dismissal.
WISAG workers protest in front of the villa of the group’s CEO Michael Wisser, March 27, 2021 (Photo: WSWS)
Just recently, another WISAG operation at Frankfurt Airport announced mass redundancies. Aviation Service GmbH (ASG), which belongs to the Wisser Group, laid off 87 of the 610 workers still employed there. Before the pandemic, there were almost 800 staff, but all temporary employees and agency workers had already been dismissed. ASG is responsible for aircraft interior cleaning and transport services. As with the WISAG workers, numerous long-serving, experienced workers, as well as 12 severely disabled people, are being fired for cost-savings.
Frankfurt Airport ground workers’ struggle at the crossroads
With their courageous fight against the WISAG corporation, the ground workers at Frankfurt Airport have already achieved something important: They have torn the mask off the media, the establishment parties, and the Verdi trade union and revealed social conditions as they are.
The politicians and union officials, who endlessly prattle about “social partnership” and “social market economy,” have stabbed the sacked workers in the back and thrown their weight behind the WISAG corporation, which is unscrupulously using the coronavirus pandemic to lay off qualified employees and replace them with poorly paid temporary workers, who are subject to be sacked at any time.