Just being devil's advocate here in relation to a court assuming authority to tell a European company how to run its business. If, for example, Debenhams, who are in the process of closing lots of stores, have stores in Holland they wish to close will they be in court to be told:

1. If a company has personnel in the Netherlands, dutch labor law will always be applicable to those employees.
2. Debenhams must keep the stores open/is forbidden to close down in Eindhoven
3. Debenhams must keep the employees employed, and must continue to pay their salaries. If Debenhams does not pay up at the end of each month, they have to pay €xxxxx euro’s per staff member

1. Seems entirely reasonable, doesn't it?

2 and 3 may follow from 1. I don't know the details, I am sure there is more to the story than just "Ryanair is not allowed to close a non-profitable base".

Ayroplain
 

Eindhoven is a very successful base.
What RYR does is punishing the Pilots for unionizing and exercising the right they have in NL by reversing the flights and harassing the pilots by offering bases they do not want. (Kaunas being one of them offered to Bremen crew!!!!)
So it has nothing to do with an unsuccessful and shrinking business, it is pure Union busting, and the Dutch Judge has put a stop to it.
If based in a EU Country, You have to follow local labor rules.
The new bases in Marseilles and Bordeaux are to follow French rules , dont You think!?
In Norway it was established that the case of a cabin crew wrongfully fired by RYR , was to be held in Norwegian court under Norwegian Labor Law!
RYR settled by giving her 3 YEARS Pay.
Then closed Oslo Rygge Base.

1. Yes
2 & 3. Yes, if they're closing down business according to UK and not NL law. If, however, they're closing shop in accordance with NL law, obviously they will not be told to remain open or keep paying salaries beyond the legal redundancy period as stipulated by NL law.

What Ryanair are trying, again, is to pretend IE labour law can be used throughout the EU. That's not the case, and Ryanair have lost every single court case - and there's been a few of them - where this topic has been contended. Every single one. Yet they keep trying, and it's very pleasing to once more see a court telling them to fark orf and play by the local rules.

Globalisation allowed corporations avoid any affinity with their country of incorporation, they were able to abandon any social contract, avoid taxation and importantly widen the net for employees.
Companies like Ryan Air grew from the dark realisation that a gloablised workforce could be sourced at 'low cost' from an increasing number of places.
Zero hour contracts, the ultimate in flexibility. Like the past era of lining up at a business on any given day hoping to be picked from the crowd it represented the high water mark of adversarial employment relations.

Increasingly as the western hemisphere has declined concentrating wealth in fewer and fewer hands, there is a growing awareness that the pendulum swung too far one way.

As it was for generations past, the collective standing together will eventually wrestle balance.
This is a necessary first step and a myriad of other dark airline IR departments are watching developments carefully.

The way this 'company' has been permitted to 'operate' is a disgrace and the courts are beginning to recognise it.
Bonderman and O'Leary are modern day robber barons, history will record them as such for they are a stain.

Curious though, BA is all over the world, so what governs their actions? UK Law or the law of the country they operate in? Do they have crew bases outside of the UK and if so what law prevales?

Great question.
Perhaps there are a few strands.
Waterside has pulled their hair out over the pension scheme. A lovely handball from the Tories. BA is a bit of a pension scheme with an airline bolted on.
Is the relationship with Iberia designed to lever cheaper labour in Spain? One might argue this is the eventual aim of Mr Walsh; replacing higher cost UK domiciled labour with cheaper continental EU labour.
If one looks at the data their airline 'group' is over-scale, suggestive that any synergy obtained wasn't from the combining of operations, rather that there was some other desire which they may have identified.

That a company domiciled in the UK ought comply with the law in the UK across the spectrum seems axiomatic, however one may be tempted to suggest that prior to such a ruling these airlines proceeded along until checked in court...

Actually, no. The court specifically said that it is up to a company to decide how to run its business.

Also, the court said that an Irish contract can be binding, also in the Netherlands, as long as it is also in accordance with Dutch and EU law. The Irish labor contract that both parties signed contains the following passages:

“LOCATION

(.........) This would include, for the avoidance of doubt, transfer to any of the Company’s bases without compensation. It must be understood that should you be transferred to another base you will be paid in accordance with the prevailing salary and flight pay system at that base.”

“EXCESS CAPACITY

(............) If the Company are required to reduce activity levels for any reason, it is a condition of this job offer that you agree and accept the right of the Company, at its sole discretion, to give you compulsory unpaid leave for the duration of the period the Company considers as excess capacity. For the avoidance of doubt you are not entitled to any payment during the period of compulsory unpaid leave.”

The judge ruled that these passages are absolutely not in accordance with Dutch Law. Therefore they are NULL and VOID. (in dutch: NIETIG) This means, that even if you mutually decide upon these things, they will still be complete TOSH. And this goes beyond the Ryanair contract in Eindhoven; the judge stated that this ruling is made to protect employees in the Netherlands in general, even if employees agree to waiver the right to this protection. You can NOT waiver your workers rights. Because these rights are also the workers' rights of all other 17 million people in the Netherlands.

Back to Debenhams.

Firing people, or re-locating people, is part of normal business proceedings. And especially in an open economy as we have here in NL. The way it works here, is as follows: If you have a good reason to re-locate or fire employees, then you will be able to do so. If Debenhams goes bankrupt, then you have a good reason to lay off staff. If Debenhams wants to re-locate staff, then you need to compensate. You also need a so-called Social Plan, whitch is an official document, which outlines how you, as an employer, are going to deal with your staff during the coming months during the re-organisation and transition to the new reality.
However.
Re-locating employees to the other side of Europe, with 1 months' notice, is not acceptable in NL.
Firing people because they do not agree to move to the fringes of Europe within 1 month, is not acceptable either.

I am sure that Ryanair will try to sneak out of this ruling. They will not succeed, and they know it. I do expect that Ryanair will think twice before starting another base here.

Just being devil's advocate: why are not more countries stand up against companies not following local rules. I mean how come that a company like Starbucks is killing local mom and pop coffeeshops and at the same time pays ZERO tax in these countries. How come a company like Ryanair can abuse workersrights and thus undercut local operators...

The good news: this is just the begining as Ryanair is 200% on Europe's radar for all the wrong labor issues reasons...

Thanks, fox niner, for your detailed explanation of Dutch Law in this respect. Very enlightening. I won't be replying to those who used my question purely as an excuse for an anti-Ryanair rant.

I suppose there must be good reasons why thousands of pilots have worked and still work for Ryanair but I wouldn't expect to get the answer on this website.

If distance is the major issue in the ruling then Eindhoven is very close to the border with Belgium and Ryanair have 2 large bases there that they could move the crew to.

Interesting looking at this from the UK where one major political party seemed to base its entire referendum campaign on "the EU is good because it gives us employment rights" - surely then this is Ryanair trying to pretend that EU labour law can be used throughout the EU. Unless Ireland is out of compliance (again)? Companies having to play by different local rules in 28 different countries is one of the things the single market is supposed to resolve, isn't it?

If Ryanair do have to keep the base open and end up losing money in EIN who will cover the cost? I doubt any loss would be made however some creative accountancy could show losses. If a company are losing money in a certain branch of the business the usual response is either restructuring and/or job cuts, how is it different here?

Nobody is forcing Ryanair to keep EIN open, but they are being 'forced' to comply with NL law with respect to closing the base down. Had Ryanair followed the rules, they would have been free to close the base. They chose not to, in the process thereof breaking Dutch law and, well, the obvious happened.

A quick google will answer that question. In essence, EU labour law revolves around 4 principles: Individual labour rights, anti-discrimination regulations, right to information and consultation at work and rights to job security. Those are the minimum requirements EU nations must comply with, but each nation is free to extend the rights of workers as their elected governments see fit. Hence the ability for e.g. IE based companies to hire people on zero-hour contracts, or force employees to move to another location without compensation, something which is expressly forbidden in other, more employee friendly, jurisdictions.

In this particular case Ryanair tried to apply Irish law to Dutch labour, and that didn't fly. Which anybody who's been following these cases could have told them and, I suspect, they knew already. Please also note that Ryanair is not appealing the ruling, as such an appeal would set a precedent they really don't want, choosing instead to bury head in sand and continue to pretend they can operate under Irish law throughout Europe.

I don't think it is. The difference is that Ryanair was trying to use a clause in their contract that said you could be required to transfer and fired if you did not accept - that clause has been ruled unenforceable. Now they will have to go with redundancy procedures instead. Slightly more expensive for Ryanair, probably, same end result for crew, definitely.

It did seem strange that a foreign court could get involved in the micromanagement of a company be it Ryanair or any other company which may face a similar issue. Very bad position for the crew unfortunately. Hopefully it works out in the end for them!

Which only becomes interesting if you have been employed for a longer period of time. Shorter contracts like in this case won't pay much.

And I wonder if the pilots are going to see something of the €250000 penalty. The ruling only stipulates that it is the penalty for a mandatory base change; not for a discharge and not for a voluntary change (it was underlined 4 times in the Ryanair letter!).

Not true, the court isn't getting involved in the management. As I read it (not a lawyer) the ruling doen't affect the validity of the base closure, nor the validity of termination of contracts. It only judges the validity of the clause for base change, which is not in accordance with dutch law.

(And I really hope that I will turn out to be wrong!)