On Unions
As vin has very rightfully put it...
And in my humble opinion...
If Ryanair suddenly had to rack in the redundancies, they would scrape off as much excess as was necessary for them to remain profitable, and would pick and choose who it would be most cost effective to remove from the staff.
Those 1500 lay offs at Aer Lingus could in RYR terms equate to around 5,000, with minimum conditions paid for if most employees are lucky.
The decision would be done within a whim of thought, agreements would be broken with the excuse of exceptional circumstances, and people who never considered their job at risk suddenly find themselves retrenched with only a week's notice...
It is true, factual, that many people employed by ryanair have to give the company a month's notice. Ryanair, in return, only has to offer a week's notice, and it is rumoured that this is often still too long for the company to wait for.
Union's can go over the line, introduce unnecessary costs, bring in too much beaurocracy. But in a company where fear and intimidation 'seems' to be the means of management, and where employees 'feel' they have no right to say or even suggest opposition to management's decisions, a Union can mean something very different all of a sudden...
A Union can mean what a Union was originally meant for.
Again, all in my humble opinion except where otherwise stated.