After an intense weekend motivated by the wild and covert strike of the air traffic controllers, it is time to ask what measures could be carried out against them.
When the agreement between the State and the Air Traffic Controllers expired in 2005, many tension have arisen between them, but what has happened this weekend has gone too far, the controllers started a strike, leaving their job on Friday at 17:00 without saying anything about the strike, it could be justified or not, but it is illegal and has left more than 600,000 people in the airport depriving them of their freedom to fly with the moral and economic losses, specially in a country like Spain, where the tourism in the main income source.
We have to take into account that the workers and the jobs are not all equal, there are some labors that should not be taken with irresponsibility and immorality, because they could cause to the society and the economy a greater damage than what could be caused by other sectors.
Now, the Government has to face, after declaring the alert state, the first time during the democracy, is what punishments are going to be kept against the controllers.
Four hundred and forty two disciplinary proceeding have been opened and the results could be from the final expulsion of the job, to close the process without any penalty to job and salary suspension.
A Judicial process has been opened in the prosecution of Madrid to decide which controllers have committed a crime and will interview all of them, the penalties could reach eight years in prison.
Since this work was militarized, the controllers are consider militaries and if they don’t follow the orders, they will be judged under the Military Penal Code. In the 91 article, military sedition is considered “who refuse to obey the order received and labors or threat, offend a superior could be punished from one to eight to ten years of prison, in the case of mere executors, with two to fifteen in the case of promoters, the leader in charge of sedition. " "If the facts were to take place at risk the safety of the ship or aircraft against insurgents or rebels, resorting to weapons or assaulting a superior, the penalties will be from ten to twenty years of prison"
In the other hand, individual complains seek a compensation for damages either through civil or criminal. A practice that would be very complicated, but in my opinion would be fair, is that drivers respond to the damage with their personal wealth, so, I think the next time that they would like to make an illegal wild strike, the will think about that twice.
