A large contingency of Ryanair staff have today expressed their deep frustration directly to the man at the top of the company.
A group of up to 60 pilot representatives from Ryanair bases throughout Europe has penned a letter to company CEO Michael O’ Leary, asking for employees to be granted collective bargaining rights over pay and conditions.
This marks the first time that employee representatives from across Europe have put their names to a collective letter to management in this fashion, following growing frustrations with the treatment of employees by company management.
When almost 20,000 Ryanair flight cancellations were announced at the end of September, issues around pilot’s pay and conditions came to public attention and became a window for the longstanding poor treatment of employees by the company’s management.
The letter crafted by the employee representatives, known internally as ERC’s, is titled “A collective message to our CEO”. These ERC’s were introduced due to Ryanair’s refusal to allow negotiations with third-party pilot unions. Ryanair has a total of 86 bases spread across Europe and North Africa and, up until now, has dealt with the ERC’s from each individual base, rather than as a collective unit. An arrangement which some belief favors company management.
The letter reads; “We seek direct negotiations with the company management. We refuse to be divided any longer into 86 groups across Europe. This arrangement was imposed by management but has never served our interests. It is time for this failed arrangement to stop.”
“We will decide for ourselves how we wish to be represented in future. We are not forming a Ryanair pilots union as you have mistakenly claimed. We want to be represented with one collective voice”.
Last month, pilots formed the joint European Employee Representative Council to seek “equality at the negotiating table”.
“Your insistence that you will only negotiate with us through individual bases clearly shows that they are out of touch with our concerns. Your rejection of our simple requests and your continued efforts to push a new pay deal onto individual bases clearly shows that you have not listened to us.”
The letter also addressed pay and conditions issues, claiming that the current pay at Ryanair is “not aligned with industry standards”, and said that a draft conditions and pay proposals document had been released to pilots last week which will be completed in the near future.
The letter closed with a conclusion of the requirements of pilots across Europe which included; “a transparent representation system which supports genuine negotiations, to create a collective pilots agreement covering all bases, with legal contracts that comply with the laws of the countries in which we are based.”
“Please listen to our reasonable request to avoid further damage being done to our company.”
