Opinion: When will communist-era union culture finally be abolished?

Columnist Tarmo Pikner reflects on the frustrations of modern labour strikes after getting stranded at Frankfurt Airport due to a Lufthansa pilots' union walkout. He questions whether the inherited Soviet-style union mentality still dominates European labour relations.

Columnist Tarmo Pikner had a stark reminder of the power of organised labour recently — not from a history book, but from a departure board at Frankfurt Airport, where every single flight row displayed the same ominous word: CANCELLED. The culprit was Vereinigung Cockpit, the Lufthansa pilots' union, which had called a two-day strike demanding higher wages for cockpit crew.

Stranded in Frankfurt

For Pikner, the frustration was deeply personal. He had already paid for his ticket — handing over his money in good faith to an airline that then, through no fault of its own scheduling, left him stranded at one of Europe's busiest airports. «I have given you my money, because I had a ticket,» he wrote, capturing the helplessness many passengers feel when industrial action upends their plans without warning or recourse.

The columnist doesn't dispute the right to fair wages — he acknowledges that everyone needs money. But his exasperation points to a broader question that cuts across European labour politics: at what point do union strikes, particularly in critical public infrastructure sectors like aviation, prioritise collective bargaining muscle over the rights and wellbeing of ordinary paying customers?

The 'communist school' metaphor

Pikner reaches for a provocative metaphor, asking when «communist schools» — his term for institutions and cultures that taught collective grievance as the primary tool of social negotiation — will finally close their doors. It is a loaded phrase, but one that resonates in the Baltic context, where memories of Soviet-era collective action as a political instrument remain vivid.

The column raises a genuine tension at the heart of modern labour relations: the right to strike is a cornerstone of democratic freedoms, yet in sectors where consumers have little alternative and have already paid upfront, strikes inflict costs on entirely uninvolved third parties. Whether the answer lies in compulsory arbitration, minimum service laws, or simply cultural change is a debate that Frankfurt's cancelled flights boards have once again forced back into the open.