Lufthansa pilots to walk out in pensions dispute

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/07/lufthansa-strike-pensions-dispute-germany

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Lufthansa pilots have announced their fifth strike since the end of August, this time grounding freight flights in Germany in a dispute over retirement benefits.

Pilots of Lufthansa Cargo are set to walk out on Wednesday and Thursday and will “not operate any flight departing from German airports”, their union, Cockpit, said in a statement.

Other recent strikes carried out by the union have disrupted passenger flights, with the last, on 30 September, affecting 20,000 travellers.

Cockpit said the German airline’s management had been “stubbornly maintaining” its plans to change retirement benefits, leaving the union with no choice but to launch fresh strikes.

Managers said they had “shown readiness to reach a compromise in discussions with Cockpit and had proposed new negotiations.

“In these conditions, this new call for work stoppage is neither comprehensible nor reasonable,” Lufthansa said in a statement.

Lufthansa pilots are fighting a plan by the airline to raise the minimum age they can take paid early retirement from 55 and to make them contribute to their pensions.