The meeting follows a tender for ground handling assistance at Lisbon, Porto, and Faro airports, which provisionally awarded the licenses to the Clece/South consortium, part of the Iberia group, with Menzies coming second.
SIMA expressed its “deep concern for jobs and demanded concrete answers regarding the role of TAP as a shareholder, given it holds a 49.9% stake in SPdH (Menzies).”
According to the union, “contrary to what some doom-mongers insist on saying, TAP is not obliged to sell its stake—and those who say otherwise should at least read the legislation before spreading falsehoods.”
SIMA emphasized it has long been “alerting the relevant authorities to the amateurism and incompetence characterizing Menzies’ management—a true ‘black magic’ moment for employees, resulting from poor decisions and an administration unable to manage responsibly and with foresight.”
The union stated that “this was not the first SIMA meeting at the Ministry” nor the first time it approached “parliamentary groups to denounce harmful management within the company,” but “despite warnings, nothing was done.”
“The outcome is clear, a dark chapter in the history of Menzies and civil aviation in Portugal,” it indicated, pointing out that “the company’s workforce consists of about 1,650 employees, of which 600 are on TAP contracts, 150 are Menzies employees, and approximately 900 are precarious workers.”
The union highlighted that it “has been repeatedly denouncing abusive practices, wages below the national minimum wage, incorrect payment of night hours, loss of rights such as parking spaces, unjustified dismissals, and a climate of fear fueled by company threats,” also noting that “years of service experience and knowledge have been simply discarded.”
In the preliminary report of the tender, accessed by Lusa, the jury led by Sofia Simões gave a score of 95.2523 to the Clece/South group, part of the Iberia group, while Menzies (formerly Groundforce) ended with a score of 93.0526.
