Wizz Air’s founder and CEO József Váradi says it is childish that several unions and organizations want to boycott the company’s domestic routes in Norway.
Last week, Wizz Air announced that they are starting up domestic routes from Oslo to Bergen, Trondheim, and Tromsø after flying abroad from Norway for almost 15 years.
The Hungarian company has made it clear that they will not enter into collective agreements with trade unions.
That has led to opposition among the trade unions in Norway.
Unions Industri Energi and Nito will not let their employees use the company for business trips.
“Childish”
“I just think it’s childish,” Váradi told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN).
He believes that organizations do not understand what prosperity is about and that it is about being efficient, growing, and creating jobs.
Váradi says that Wizz is creating and saving jobs without the unions and pays its employees market wages.
The wage costs in the company are 9%, according to DN.
That is much lower than at SAS and Norwegian.
“Look at all the airlines that have been occupied by unions, they are all on the verge of bankruptcy,” he said.
Reactions from Norwegian politicians
The statements created reactions on both the left and the right side of Norwegian politics.
“It may seem that the Wizz Air manager does not know and understand Norwegian working life. It seems he does not understand how we want Norwegian working life to be. His view of trade unions is, to put it mildly, very foreign,” Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Henrik Asheim (H) told DN.
The Labor Party’s (AP) fiscal policy spokeswoman Hadia Tajik called Váradi’s statements “outdated and anti-worker.”
“It shows a complete lack of understanding of Norway’s success story and the working life model,” she noted.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
…”Look at all the airlines that have been occupied by unions, they are all on the verge of bankruptcy,” he said.“…
That is the gangster mentality of a ruthless criminal.
Varadi’s most arrogant comment is complete rubbish. Those arlines have difficulties because companies like wizzair evading payment of social security, pension and tax. In commercial aviation the profit margin is so small that any low abiding airline looses against these gangs.
Companies like wizzair intimidate and force their employees beyond their contractual and legal obligations to save costs on manpower.
Any resistance on the ground of basic employee rights (rest time, work time limits, off duty entitlements etc.) are retaliated with immediate dismissal.
Which threatens the safety of everyday flight operations and puts the travelling public at grave risks.
It is time that law and decision makers, regulaters and even law enforcement put an end to it.
All wizzair’s and its management’s activity shall be investigated and prosecuted thoroughly for the sake of the travellers, the industry and society at large.
I Do work for Wizzair for few years now.Your comment is purely demagogic and comes from frustrated people unable to understand the concept.People relying only on state help when the shitstorm occurs.Nobody in Wizzair have ever been forced to transgress any rule. On the contrary it is one of the safest airline that any passenger could use as Safety first means really it. Finally Wizzair would be the last airline to close down if this covid pandemic bullshit management continues on that direction. Norwegian state government will be running out of money to help Norwegian or any other local company. they will simply run out of paper to print the money!!! We live in a free world or kind of. If you don’t like this kind of company just avoid it. but at least others will benefit from this service quality
Don’t work for it and don’t travel on it.
But at the end this model is the only one at this stage able to hire and save jobs.
Wizz air is the hungarian version of Spirit Airlines—enough said.
Leave Wizzair alone and let us have normal prices so we could travel