The Air Sector and Tourist Services of FSC-CCOO has demanded from the Government and all parliamentary representation groups an immediate reform of Royal Decree 1559/1986, the regulation that sets the reduction coefficients for the retirement age in aerial work professions.
The union organization denounces the discrimination that the group of Passenger Cabin Crew (TCP) has suffered since the entry into force of this law, being unjustifiably excluded from a social protection system that does recognize the hardship and difficulty of work on board for other professional profiles in aviation.
This demand, which CCOO has been defending for years, is now reinforced by a solid scientific basis following the dissemination of an epidemiological analysis in the journal "JAMA Internal Medicine," signed by specialists from Harvard Medical School.
The research analyzes cancer mortality associated with radiation in more than 500 occupations and places TCPs in the highest risk position.
According to the results, this group reaches a 6.9% rate of deaths from radiocontrolled cancers and has a 50% higher probability of dying from these types of diseases compared to the overall working population.
CCOO emphasizes that the continued exposure to ionizing cosmic radiation, estimated between 3 and 6 mSv per year, combined with the chronic alteration of the circadian rhythm resulting from shift work and night flights, makes commercial aviation a work environment of special danger.
The study detects very significant increases in the frequency of breast cancer, with a 61% higher risk, as well as an increase in diagnoses of melanoma, central nervous system tumors, prostate cancer, and various oncohematological pathologies.
For the union, these conclusions demonstrate that the work of TCPs is objectively arduous and unhealthy, carried out continuously at high altitude.
After contacts maintained with the Socialist Parliamentary Group and the Plurinational Sumar Group, CCOO succeeded in registering a proposal in the Congress of Deputies aimed at promoting the modification of the decree.
Consequently, the trade union urges the Cortes Generales to accelerate the processing and debate of this legislative proposal, in order to put an end to what it considers a historical injustice and allow cabin crew to be able to benefit from the retirement reduction coefficients.