The General Union of Workers, known as UGT, has announced a state-wide strike at Azul Handling, part of the Ryanair group, in response to ongoing issues of precariousness and continuous breaches of labour rights. Azul Handling is responsible for providing ground handling services to Ryanair airlines at numerous airports across Spain. Strikes will commence on the fifteenth of August and will see work stoppages at all of the company’s operational bases in Spain.

Initial strike action is scheduled for the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of August, during three time slots: from five in the morning to nine in the morning, from noon to three in the afternoon, and from nine in the evening to eleven fifty-nine at night. Following this initial period, strikes will continue every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until the thirty-first of December twenty twenty-five, impacting major airports including Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville.

The UGT union highlights several key issues leading to the strike, including the lack of consolidated working hours for permanent part-time staff and the imposition of additional working hours under pressure. They also raise concerns over excessive disciplinary measures and ongoing violations of the Joint Committee of the Sectoral Agreement regarding economic guarantees and pay bonuses. UGT has accused Azul Handling of unlawfully limiting workers’ ability to return from medical leave and of obstructing family-friendly working hours by refusing to provide flexible scheduling.

José Manuel Pérez Grande, the federal secretary of the FeSMC-UGT air union, stated that Azul Handling implements a strategy that perpetuates precarious working conditions and undermines basic labour rights. The union demands that the company retract punitive measures, adhere to existing agreements, and engage in genuine negotiations to improve working conditions for more than three thousand workers across the country.