Ireland: Ryanair Fears €20m Pilot Hit
 

From the Sunday Times, 31 Dec 2006. (Note for Mods - the ST's direct URL link may not be available to people outside the UK, hence the article is reproduced in full below) :

"Ireland: Ryanair fears €20m pilot hit
Brian Carey

LOW-FARE airline Ryanair faces sanctions and damages in excess of €20m if it loses a series of cases to be taken by Irish pilots and due to be decided in the coming year. The decision could also see future pay claims adjudicated by the Labour Court rather than the airline.

The key date for the airline is January 31 when the Irish supreme court will rule whether the Labour Court and the Labour Relations Commission have jurisdiction over industrial disputes at the airline. If the Supreme Court rules in favour of the pilots, it will lead the way to a string of grievances being adjudicated.

A total of 100 pilots have lodged victimisation claims against the airline through the state industrial relations machinery. The airline faces sanctions of up to twice the annual salary of the pilots in each case if the claims are proven. Ryanair says that its pilots earn at least €100,000 per annum.

The airline is also facing a separate series of High Court actions from 64 pilots who claim that their constitutional rights were infringed by a controversial training bond.

The airline agreed to pay the cost of retraining pilots on new Boeing aircraft at a cost of €15,000 but only if the pilots signed a bond agreeing not to leave the airline for five years. The bond also stipulated that the pilots would have to repay the training costs if the company was forced to negotiate with any trade union during the same period.

The pilots claim the terms of the bond infringe their constitutional rights, particularly the right to freedom of association and the right to allow trade unions to negotiate on their behalf.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ryanair estimates that damages could total €6m if the pilots are successful.

A supreme court ruling in favour of the pilots in January could also result in the Labour Court deciding on compensation and working conditions for Ryanair pilots. It would mean Ryanair’s system of payment would be open to scrutiny by a third party for the first time.

Ryanair has consistently maintained that its pilots’ pay is among the highest of all short-haul airlines, but a large chunk of salaries is paid through productivity and incentive bonuses. Ryanair’s SEC filing says some 42% of a pilot’s salary is payable through bonuses.

The filing also says the airline agreed to a basic salary increase of 1.8% for pilots at 13 of its bases last April. Pilots at Dublin “chose not to participate in these negotiations and as a result received no pay increase”. Pilots who were part of a 2000 share option plan were eligible to earn €60,000 before tax from December 1, 2005, the filing says, “and generally did so”."

Whilst I appreciate that it might be illegal to victimise somebody for being a member of a union he has worded this very carefully I am sure.

Now I am no lawyer but he doesn't mention "membership" and I am sure specifically so.

It is a brilliant divide and rule tactic, the Union really wants to negotiate but is going to be encouraged not to by its own members.

I am sure that if you were to put as much money and effort into treating your staff properly then you would end up with happy staff, the same business with the same profits, maybe even improved profits.

What can somebody's motivation be to make life such a misery for so many people when it doesn't have to be that way?

It is not so much a brilliant tactic as a circumvention of the law. It is a union's primary raison d'etre to negotiate on behalf of its members. If an employment contract penalizes employees in case a/their union does what it is supposed to do, the contract infringes on the right of association and the right to have a union negotiate on one's behalf.

I have no doubt that the Irish judicial system will be able to discern such a circumenvention and I suppose that a contractual clause the sole purpose of which is to circumvent the letter (or even spirit) of the law will not hold in court.

Wow :eek:

i don't like this stuff, specially now that i'm in my way to start ATPL :* looks like everything is up side down..

In another blow for the Hairy Camel, Ryanair's cynical attempt to gain control of the domain name for a customer's critical website was rejected by a UN Panel on Wednesday:

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/technology/061227/z122706A.html

Alpine

You have a lot more faith in the law than I have then, because I would have thought that the court would hold to the "letter" and not "spirit" of the law.

But I dearly hope that you are right.

Hairy
 

Watch them alter that statement very quickly if the Labour Court rule against them.

Still with the IAA validating the licenses of every primate that can sign a form he won't have any problems when he forces the others to leave. Unless of course the incidents don't end with Rome and Knock.

Now that is an interesting fact, according to Ryanair the starting salary is €100,000, or is the the usual case of saying one thing and meaning another.

huray!
 

Thank you Beagle for posting this great news. Well done Evan (and the lads for sticking by him). You guys have made my new year a good deal more cheery. Theone83, I should'nt get too worried, the lads are ensuring you have a job worth the money you are spending on your ticket. Role on 2007 lets watch the camel squerm.:D

I just can't wait to hear the verdict.

Back in the heyday of Ryanair related threads we could expect long sanctimonious threads from a certain pro-Ryanair contributor we all loved to hate. His posts were a joy to behold quoting everything from Homer to Shakespeare to Yeats as was his wont. For some they were a touch verbose but useful to others suffering insomnia. Some detected threats within these wordy feasts, others were often left open mouthed by the man's audacity and verbal gymnastics.

Noted defeats in the Supreme Court of Ireland were turned into outright victories. What some judges described as intimidation and bullying were dismissed as a strong robust management style. Aer Lingus was regularly dismissed as a worthless organisation run by the communists in SIPTU and the dopes in government. So worthless was Aer Lingus, that almost all of Ryanair's family silver was to be spent buying this useless pile of pooh. And then...silence. Cue tumbleweed. Nothing at all. And so now no more do we receive the wisdom we so badly want to read from the parallel universe of Ryanair. Ah those happy days are gone indeed.

Anyway for now let's look forward to lots of dirty laundry being aired in this next court case - but don't count your chickens just yet!

All of which explains why a CONDITION for promotion in Ryanair is that each applicant must sign a document confirming "that they have no outstanding claims" against the company.

Thus, as night follows day, it follows those who don't sign don't get promoted. But, to paraphrase another famous Ryanair communication to its pilots "this is not victimisation or intimidation, nor does it in any way infringe your legal rights". Yea, right.

Make no mistake about this bunch. They remain as deadly as ever.

Please explain why, as a potential future pilot, you would rather the status quo remains? If your attitude is all love of MOL, I, for one, would rather you stayed the hell out of aviation and left those of us who have an interest in bettering ourselves to get on with it.

I think the FR model of pilot recriutment and working condts has been on the rack for a long time....should this claim bear fruit I believe the FR share price maybe affected......more important though would be a historic victory for those involved who genuinely stuck by their guns for genuine greivances.:D

Usually at this juncture our old pal usually marches into town firing blanks in all directions......:=

Ooh, calm down. I politely suggest that it might indeed be the "status quo" at Ryanair that young TheOne83 objects to rather than the pilot's attempts at resolution. Not sure of course but can you really imagine any pilot being "all love for MOL"?

Anyway, best of luck to the pilot's involved.

ChocksAwayUK

Hard as it is to believe, there are (or were at any rate) some pilots who did indeed love MOL. The culprits include the usual goons such as SMcK, AO'S etc etc. No surprises there then.
However, there were (and the odd few still seem to persist) plenty of, mainly younger, Scandi, German and Dutch pilots who thought MOL was a superstar and would more gladly bend over at his beck and call. Am I making this up? Well, what do you think of pilots who asked MOL for his autograph???? This I have witnessed with my own eyes. I truly hope these individuals now see the light. Roll on the 31st.

Well I never, roll on indeed.

Yeeks CamelhAir you actually made my flesh crawl there for a moment :yuk:

I hope there are not too many brown nosed pups like that in FR, otherwise progress will be well nigh impossible.

Was a passenger on a flight when a man sat next to me showing his boarding card which had been signed by mol. Felt so sorry for this man who was obviously chuffed to bits with the autograph. If only he knew what the bloke was really like

I quess Ryan Air will be forced to relocate to Canada and hire Canadians to fly, ince the europeans are stiring up trouble again.
Why can't you guys just be happy your flying for peanuts and have a job.
I love flying so much that I'D FLY FOR FREE!