Pilots in Girona are either on a Irish contract if full time, and therefore paying tax and operating under Irish employment law or, in the case of contractors ,employed by an agency nominally based in the UK and left to pay tax (or not) in whichever country they feel like. All of this makes the involvement of a Spanish union impractical, and given the strength of the union ( SEPLA) I can't see that RYR would exactly welcome their involvement. All RYR contracts have a clause that you accept to be moved ( at the companies discretion) to another base, this clause has ( and would again be ) used for reasons other than simple operational requirements if any "uprising" and it's instigators were identified. Ryanair will do anything ,no matter how draconian, to keep unions out, anyone failing to believe this is deceiving themselves and their colleagues, and grossly underestimating what an uphill task orchestrating any recognition attempt would entail.
If anything has become clear these last few years, it is that it is impossible to find "unity" in such a disparate group of individuals, and that ,even with only 2 Unions involved( IALPA & BALPA ), the strategy required to mount a recognition campaign could not be coordinated between them, never mind involving SEPLA et al.
That , unfortunately, is the situation and the pilots have only themselves ( collectively ) to blame. MOL has, over the years ,been allowed to go too far, and the train is too far off the rails to get it back on.
Edited to say, Easy achieved union recognition a while back in the UK, so therein lies the reason that they have a little SEPLA enclave in MAD I suppose.
Last edited by captplaystation; 24th Sep 2008 at 11:20.