Originally Posted by
172_driver
Yeah, let's get deprived of all our rights just to keep the base going and management richer. Unbeknown to you much of what unions are asking for is no primadonna treatment. How about things like summer holiday, sick payment entitlements, maternity/paternity leave, loss of license insurance. It's Ryanair throwing toys out of the cot saying those things are unreasonable demands. What do you think?
Ryanair pilots are deprived of those things already. I was pointing to the fact that you need to build a solid foundation before you can build something. I work for a more 'reputable airline' and although we do have sick pay etc we do not have LOL insurance.
If the unions had taken the longer term goals into consideration why not demand local permanent contracts for crew first? That would then have immediately allowed access to basic benefits such as sick pay and maternity/paternity leave under local legislation (I'm sure in a country like Holland the local laws would stipulate very favorable benefits to the employees). Things like summer leave and loss of license insurance take a very long time to negotiate and can be dragged out for an even longer time by management, in the meantime at least you would have had your base covered by a local contract subject to local law and collective work agreement.
We all know the usual argument of ask for everything and hope to get as much as possible, but in reality the more you ask for the more of a hard line the company will take. Asking firstly for job security through local contracts may possibly have been quite an easy win, especially when FR were short on crew! Leave the big fight for summer leave, LOL, pensions etc. until the next argument where at least your job in a specific base is secure, at least then the threat of closing a base or firing staff is nullified by the previous agreement.