AN ITALIAN UNION that represents a number of Ryanair pilots has served a strike notice for later this month.
The Anpac union has called a strike of Ryanair pilots at bases across Italy on 15 December for four hours, from 1pm to 5pm.
The union said that the strike has been called due to lack of movement from Ryanair management addressing the issues of pilots.
It comes as yesterday Portuguese union Spac served formal notice of its Ryanair members voting in favour of industrial action. It is believed they also plan a strike later this month.
Spac said that a majority of Ryanair pilots based in Portugal are members of its unions. It said that a vote for industrial action “passed by a landslide” on 30 November.
Ryanair does not recognise or negotiate with third-party unions in any of its 86 bases in countries spread out across Europe and in north Africa.
Instead it has internal Employee Representative Councils (ERCs) at each base, where it negotiates pay deals and contractual terms with staff members based there.
The airline was the subject of much criticism after it cancelled 2,100 flights between September and October and a further 18,000 between November and March.
Ryanair put this down to a rostering issue around having to allocate too much leave in the final months of the year. Despite the issues, it still posted large profits for the first half of the year.
There have been numerous reports that the cancellations are down to large numbers of pilots leaving the airline, but Ryanair has repeatedly denied this.
Following on from the cancellations, there have been multiple reports of widespread staff discontent, with pilots demanding improved pay and conditions from the airline and the right to collective bargaining across all of Europe.
There have also been numerous instances of pilots rejecting pay deals at various European bases.
To achieve their aims, pilots set up the European Employee Representative Council (EERC) to advocate and bargain on behalf of all Ryanair workers across Europe.
Ryanair has also said repeatedly that it does not recognise the EERC and will not negotiate with pilots in this fashion.
Anpac said that it was calling for the strike on 15 December due to the failure for the company to engage with on the following issues:
“The strike will affect all Ryanair flights departing from the national territory, without prejudice to compliance with the laws in force,” the union said.
In response to a query from TheJournal.ie, a spokesperson from Ryanair said:
“This is the sixth time FIT/CSIL or ANPAC has announced strikes by Ryanair pilots, only to postpone/cancel them later.
We expect this latest threatened strike will also be postponed/cancelled since FIT/CSIL /ANPAC is an Alitalia union with no role in Ryanair.
In relation to the Portuguese notice of industrial action, Ryanair said:
“We regularly receive threats of industrial action from competitor airline pilot unions from Italy, Portugal and even Aer Lingus pilots occasionally.
Both we and our pilots ignore these letters…
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