The ITF Network of Aviation Unions in Latin America is a network of unions and federations that has been working together for over 15 years. Over the years, the network has demonstrated several different types of successful union cooperation.
The Aviation Union Network was started by unions in the largest aviation company in Latin America, LATAM, which operates in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The network includes mechanics, ground staff, baggage handlers, administrative workers, dispatchers, cabin crew and pilots. In 2015, the network expanded to include unions from the second largest aviation company in Latin America, Avianca. As the network has grown it has also incorporated key aviation workers such as air traffic controllers and air traffic services from the public sector and subcontracted ramp workers.
The network shares information on working conditions, legal frameworks, union strategies, structures and advocacy work in the various countries and sectors. Together the unions plan coordinated campaigning, organising and collective bargaining work together. When LATAM filed for bankruptcy in the United States in May 2020, the network coordinated the union strategy to jointly intervene in the US legal process.
A high level of trust and mutual learning and solidarity has developed among the unions which has allowed the unions to win key organising and collective bargaining demands.
Through the network the unions have increased their sharing of information and solidarity work by sector. Both the cabin crew and the mechanic unions hold international meetings to compare the details of working conditions and salary levels between countries. This has enhanced their power at the negotiating table and created increased support for each other's industrial disputes. In the 2014 strike by the Peruvian mechanics union, members of the Argentina, Brazil and Chilean aviation mechanic unions worked closely with the Peruvian union, talking to workers together and planning strike strategies at the international level. This enabled the unions to greatly increase the wages of the Peruvian mechanics, together fight social dumping, and bring the Peruvian conditions to a level comparable to Argentina and Chilean mechanics for the first time in the history of the company.
The unions in the network have also increased their cooperation at the national level. In 2010, the Argentine unions demanded joint bargaining take place with LATAM. The unions went on strike at the airport and were able to win the right to joint bargaining, the reinstatement of fired union leaders, and collective bargaining for all LATAM workers for the first time as well as improved salaries and working conditions.
In another example of increased national cooperation, in 2016 the cabin crew, administrative, dispatcher and mechanic unions in Peru began sharing office space together in order to pool their resources and intensify their work together. In Colombia, in 2012, the unions merged the smaller mechanic, cabin crew, dispatchers and administrative unions into a national industry union, SINTRATAC. With the increased negotiating power of the industrial union, the company agreed to negotiate a union contract for the first time and the workers won protection from being fired or subcontracted as well as improvement in salaries and working conditions.
Feller, Dina and Conrow, Teresa (2017). The Power of Aviation Unions in South America: The ITF LATAM Union Network. Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Global Policy and Development. Available at: (https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/13817.pdf)