On 25 April at KLM headquarters, CFO Erik Swelheim received about sixty staff people  from Finance & Control and representatives of four of the five ground trade unions (UNF, VHKP, UNF, UNH, UNHCR) who are opposed to the intended organisational change at Finance & Control. Mr Swelheim took possession of a placard bearing the names and years of service of the workers in question. He emphasised his wish to enter into discussions with the trade unions in an effort to arrive at a suitable solution for everyone involved.

KLM would like to integrate most of its Dutch accounting activities in KLM’s shared service centre in Budapest and at a specialised revenue accounting provider in India. In so doing, KLM is taking another step towards achieving its Perform 2020 objectives. KLM has looked into alternative options. However, the alternatives examined by KLM fail to deliver all the desired cost savings.

KLM realises that the intended organisational change will be disappointing for the employees concerned and would like to offer them support in order to limit the impact as far as possible. Approximately 130 employees will be affected by outsourcing the accounting activities abroad. The employees concerned will be assigned to the TransitionCentre on the basis of mobility agreements hammered out with the unions. KLM hopes to find a suitable solution for the employees concerned in the years ahead based on natural attrition, voluntary departure schemes and mobility within and beyond KLM.

In recent months, KLM has done everything possible to reach a favourable recommendation from the Works Council for this decision. Unfortunately, this has not been possible to achieve. The Works Council recently decided to challenge KLM’s decision. KLM will wait for the Enterprise Section’s ruling. However, KLM is convinced that further optimisation rounds will be essential for these departments. And this will be necessary in order to achieve additional efficiency gains. Many of KLM’s competitors have already adopted similar measures.