60,000 jobs at and thanks to the airport, are at risk if no solution is found to mitigate the Brussels noise restrictions. Do you want to help preserve the 60,000 jobs at the country’s national airport? Do you want to be able to continue to travel yourself or be able to send off or welcome home family members and relatives at Brussels Airport? Do you want to be able to dispatch parcels and food items to all corners of the globe; import or quickly send out life-saving medicine to the countries where they are needed? In that case, support ‘Let us keep our airport jobs’, an initiative of the entire airport community! Sign the online petition here and get your family members, relatives, friends and sympathisers to do likewise. Support us on the social media at #keepourairportjobs.
filled in paper postcards, Facebook video shares, digital postcards
223.665 video views, 26.934 unique website visits
And so can you!
Fill in this digital postcard for Prime Minister Charles Michel
Share your photo, first name, city and job title with the hashtag #keepourairportjobs
20,000 people earn their daily living thanks to their job at Brussels Airport. For each job at the airport, a further two are created elsewhere around the country. This makes for a grand total of 60,000 jobs. A number difficult to get your head around. However, if these jobs were lost, this would amount to almost 30 times the number of jobs lost at Caterpillar Gosselies, 10 times the jobs lost at Ford Genk or 4 times those scrapped at Sabena.
Today, these 60,000 jobs are at risk. Politicians and Government leaders from the various parts of the country are forced to find a solution for the Brussels noise restrictions. These restrictions are so strict that airlines are unable to comply, meaning they face up to 5 times more fines, that can run up to as much as 62,000 euros each. The airlines are not prepared to continue putting up with this and feel compelled to relocate to other airports. Our jobs? To be moved elsewhere, along with their employers …
Imagine the federal police telling you to drive on the right-hand side of the road, only to find that one town will issue you with a fine unless you drive on the left. So what do you do? Drive on the right-hand side and get a fine? Or drive on the left but risk losing your driving licence? This is the trade-off pilots are forced to make almost every day in, or rather, above our country.
We want the noise restrictions to be kept reasonable, so that cargo and passenger planes can continue to fly. Some airlines have already turned their backs on Belgium and are now flying out of Amsterdam or Frankfurt. We cannot let this happen! Which is why the entire airport community is sounding the alarm bell. Let us keep our airport jobs!
This campaign is a collaborative effort which the whole airport community has rallied behind: trade unions, employers and employees are standing shoulder to shoulder to preserve the jobs at Brussels Airport: BTB/UBOT, ACB, ACLVB/CGSLB, ACV Transcom, AOC, BAR, BATA and Voka.
This website has an online petition, which you can sign and forward to family members, relatives and friends. Every vote counts!
At the airport itself, badges and stickers are distributed under the banner ‘Let us keep our airport jobs’. Wear them, pass them on to people you know and make sure they are visible!
In addition, we are handing out 20,000 postcards, which you can sign and hand in, so that we can present them to Prime Minister Michel and the other Government leaders.
Make yourself heard on social media with the hashtag #keepourairportjobs and support our cause.
In the short term, we want the tolerance margins in respect of the Brussels noise restrictions to remain unchanged. This is a first and necessary step before all the stakeholders concerned can subsequently sit down to seek out a balanced solution taking into consideration the jobs, the local residents, the environment and the economy. We want a stable legal framework so that we can develop robust plans for the future and secure the jobs at Brussels Airport.
The official campaign kick-off is February 8. We will be running the campaign until the next meeting of the Consultation Committee, scheduled for February 20. But we cannot afford to let our guard down beyond this date! We will continue to keep the politicians and the general public informed of the significance of Brussels Airport to the national economy and the tens of thousands of jobs it brings, which this country absolutely needs.
With almost 19.000 supports and almost 200.000 video views, we can conclude our operation has been visible and has been heard. Press releases and footage have appeared in newspapers, magazines and on the television news. On Friday, February 17th, around 60 people gathered to meet Minister-President of Flanders, Geert Bourgeois, Minister-President of Brussels, Rudi Vervoort and Prime Minister of Belgium, Charles Michel, throughout a walk around Brussels. During the tour, the postcards – completed by the affected people, backers and supporters – were handed over to the Ministers. Let us hope the politicians will find a solution that is acceptable for everyone and that we can keep our airport! Let us keep our airport jobs!