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RYANAIR CAME OUT the wrong side of a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling today, which could have a big impact on how it handles future labour disputes with workers outside Ireland.
The ECJ’s judgement, published this morning, has determined that the airline’s crew members have the option of bringing industrial relations proceedings before the courts in the countries in which they are based.
It suggests the airline cannot automatically refer disputes for staff based overseas to the Irish courts. Several unions have welcomed the decision as one that would stop Ryanair skirting local labour laws in other European countries.
With that in mind, here’s what you need to know about the ruling and how it could affect future worker disputes at Ryanair.
What’s the dispute about?
This story dates back to 2011, when six former air stewards based at an airport in Belgium lodged complaints against Ryanair and Crewlink, an Irish company that employs cabin crew on behalf of the airline.
Ryanair typically puts direct and agency staff on Irish contracts, instead of agreements for each of the regions in which the workers are based.
The contracts signed by the workers at Brussels’ Charleroi Airport said their duties were carried out on board Irish-registered Ryanair aircraft – but their ‘home base’ was in Belgium.
The ex-employees wanted a Belgian court to hear their case and to have their contracts recognised under local employment law. They argued that EU regulation required the weaker contracting party – in this case the worker – to be provided with adequate protection.
They accused Ryanair of applying provisions in Irish law which are less favourable than Belgian law, even though the workers had no real connection with Ireland.
Ryanair argued that the workers’ contracts should be viewed as legitimately Irish because the employees benefited from local social security and their salaries were paid into bank accounts opened in Ireland.
In 2013, a Belgian labour court ruled that it did not have the jurisdiction to hear the case, so it was referred to the ECJ after an appeal from the workers.
The European court was then tasked with determining whether or not the workers’ claims can be heard in Belgian courts. That’s what today’s judgement decided.
What did the ECJ say?
The ECJ said today that the Belgian court does in fact have the jurisdiction to hear the workers’ case, stating:
In disputes relating to their employment contracts, air crew members have the option of bringing proceedings before the courts of the place where they perform the essential part of their duties vis-à-vis their employer.
It’s up to the national court to decide whether their place of work is Ireland or Belgium. The court pointed out that European rules concerning jurisdiction are aimed at protecting the weaker party in a dispute.
It said those rules permit an employee to sue their employer before the courts which they regard as closest to their interests. That could be either the place where they work or where the company is domiciled.
The court said the ‘home base’ clause alone didn’t determine in which jurisdiction a case can be heard. Instead, a number of factors must be considered, like where the employee receives their instructions and where they return after completing their tasks.
It said the place of work where a member of staff carries out their duties cannot be equated to the nationality of the aircraft.
What will happen next?
Despite the seemingly negative finding, Ryanair welcomed today’s ruling and said it didn’t plan to change its approach for hiring workers using Irish contracts.
“This ECJ decision does not change the status quo of Irish contracts of employment for Ryanair crew based across Europe,” the airline said in a statement. ”Ryanair will continue to employ its crew on Irish contracts of employment.”
Nevertheless, several European unions seized on the decision as a defeat for the airline and a “victory for workers’ rights”.
European Transport Workers’ Federation general secretary Eduardo Chagas said: “I am confident that this ruling will empower the workers in all airlines that want to circumvent national law and pick the jurisdiction that best serves their interests.
The home base from which you work is the obvious criterion when defending the legitimate labour rights of mobile staff inside the EU.
Greg Ennis, organiser of Siptu’s transport, energy, aviation and construction division, said the ruling is “a significant milestone in the journey to achieving better terms and conditions for all Ryanair employees right across Europe”.
“This is a vital step for those who need, in particular, to seek redress in matters relating to individual contracts of employment. It does away with what has been the attempt by the management of Ryanair to use a flag of convenience approach to undermine workers’ rights,” Ennis stated.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary told Fora in April that the airline expected to appeal the ruling after acknowledging that the low-cost carrier was likely to come out the wrong side of the ECJ’s decision.
We’ll respect the ruling. We’ll appeal it, but we have to respect the ruling. It may well be that people at our bases across Europe may have local employment contracts.
However, he added that the airline has had local employment contracts with workers in the UK for many years.
He said this measure “hasn’t led to unionisation” of cabin crew or pilots there, something the airline boss – who famously called RTÉ a “rat-infested North Korean union shop” – is keen to avoid.
He also issued a warning to any workers who might try to form unions if the Belgian workers are victorious.
“We don’t believe (the ECJ ruling) will lead to unionisation because the first people up over the barricade looking for unions will find their base either frozen or closed,” he said.
“As we did in Copenhagen when we were blockaded by the SAS unions, we will move the aircraft out of there.”
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I can tell you from personal experience that he’s lying.
Proof?
I had 2 friends whom worked with them at different times and said they were the worst place ever to work for. They had a button on their PCs that they had to hit if they wanted to use the loo and hit again on return, at the end of month their total loo time was reviewed. Said that there was large staff turnabout every month and some people didn’t even stick a full week at times.
Some people are just scared of hard work.
Lindsay the new resident troll. At least you’re consistent.
I just asked for proof. How is it trolling to learn more about something?
Get back to work… *whip sound effects*
get a job there and relay us your experience after a month.
Amazon pays it’s employees well and no one forces them to work there.
“Lindsay Price” and “Katie Byrne” are one in the same trolls, this appears to be in place of there full time jobs.. if he/she/it has one!
Don’t feed her guys
stinking troll
@Vincent f
Any call centre that takes incoming calls has an unavailable to take call button. Many out going have similar if using an auto dialler. You use it when you go to the toilet or deal with paper work then press it when you can take calls. They are reviewed to judge performance. It isn’t individual toilet break logging.
You made it sound so sinister but you are getting the information 2nd hand. You can see somebody not pulling their weight very quickly but it isn’t hard work but repetitive and doesn’t suit everyone . Call centres have a high turnover but generally people that last 6 months can handle it and stay. Not
Vincent, That loo button really hit the fan. I know someone who knows someone…
At this very moment I work for Amazon and for the past about 40min I was away from my desk, no one knew where. (Went to top up my phone and have some late lunch)
There are 2 guys that took their laptop with them and play 8 ball in the atrium, other 2 play ping-pong. Recreation areas are available and you can work from there. IE monitoring or babysitting processes that take long time to complete.
My work day is exactly 8h and it includes lunchbreak and even commuting time later so I miss the traffic. (I start my work in the morning at home) You can work from anywhere and some people take advantage of this and work from other countries a few days a week while going in longer breaks.
So, please… Don’t be jealous!
I am saying exactly what I said. Did not say NYTimes is lying, but I am 100% they can’t know better than me, working there for over almost 2 years.
However I believe there might be something going on in logistics part of Amazon. I’ve seen too a CH4? 1h insight in Amazon UK Logistics. I imagine there’s like pizza delivery. People have low education and some managers may have become too full of themselves. So I can’t say anything about that department. However I believe they prefer to leave than reach higher.
On the other hand Amazon is huge! They have also the largest fleet of servers, bigger than Google. Those servers account for more than 10% of total traffic on the internet.
I wish everyone had a manager like I do! Both of them actually (my manager’s manager too). I have been talking to managers my line more than half way up to Bezos and found them very open. (Amazon is a pretty flat company)
I even know that Facilities manager asked the cleaners contracted company to have the eastern-european girl promoted as supervisor because she was doing all the work (and well) pushed around by the two Irish bags who did nothing but hide and smoke or block us from using the kitchen at lunchtime. Now kitchen is available and that girl is having a lunch break (late like I do (because I like it this way)) too which is good. I think this is an example that whenever is brought to attention, the Amazon environment is very fair.
We are not a soulless company he says as we look directly through his hollow eye sockets.
Worked in a very similar environment. In an office of 3 staff a dozen employees had passed through the doors in approximately 5 years. I lasted 3 months. Was told I was good to last that long. One lad only lasted one week. Workers on the ground had no respect for office staff as they knew they’d be gone in a few months. Boss gave enough work for 2 employees. Your set up to fail. Life is to short to work in a place you hate.
Very easy to say that’s not the Amazon he recognises when everybody is falling over themselves to lick his arse.
Isn’t that the problem. It’s very hard to complain about what’s wrong and how things can be improved to your boss. They are usually surrounded in yes men and told what they want to hear. Unfortunately in my experience if you have a big ego and are willing to tramp on anyone who gets in your way you’ll go far. Sad but true in most cases.
Except in Amazon there is no boss just managers. Everyone has one to one meetings every fortnight with their manager and a bit more rarely with the next manager in line where you can say your piece. If two is not enough you can talk to HR at any time. You can walk in any office at anytime. You give reviews to your manager towards higher managers 2 times a year. I never had any feeling of reluctance that I can’t say anything I want.
However, I don’t know what is happening everywhere, but I doubt is any different since the what I described above here seems to be the general policy.
I honestly am sorry that Amazon gets targeted by such articles.
Same stuff goes on with other Multinationals here the one I worked for used to have a review process where co-workers had to review each other and find fault or areas of improvement for you. Basically if you didn’t like a co-worker you could hammer them! They also had the tendency to promote people into management positions who had zero people management skills and the stress and abuse these guys dished out was terrible.
I wonder would he be willing to go on the us TV show “undercover boss” and prove his point
‘Paid Volunteers’ what a load of crap. His thought’s are d
In my opinion any employer who refuses to engage collectively with their workers, through their trade unions has no right to offer an opinion upon the type of workplace it is.
I’m sure he does think it’s a great place to work. I wonder how many multiples of his employees average salary he earns.
Yes you are, Mister. Stop lieing and mend your ways you horrible git.
I love my Kindle fire……
Obviously not, it’s Amazon, not the Hunger Games.
Wow it’s amazing that people are just commenting on this now. Practices like those highlighted in the article have been in force throughout the companys history. For more information please read “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon”, business book of the year 2013.
It probably depends on the position and office. But on average, Amazon looks to me as a more demanding work environment. I have some colleagues there and it looks like they do work under bigger pressure and more hours then then the rest of us in other IT companies.
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