CABIN crew on Ryanair flights across Europe have threatened strike action this summer starting from July 1 – potentially hitting Spain's tourism industry hard.
The low-cost Irish carrier has been revealed as officially the cheapest and best value for money for short-haul flights, especially as it is the only one that allows two hand luggage bags – the larger of which is placed in the hold at the departure gate for non-priority boarding passengers.
This means the company is a popular choice for breaks in Spain and often transports tourists who only planned to visit because they saw a knock-down flight price, having not otherwise intended to travel.
Spending less on a flight also means tourists have more cash at their disposal once actually in Spain, but the strikes could lead to planes being grounded if insufficient staff are available to provide essential cabin services.
Spanish unions USO and SITCPLA, together with Portuguese union SNVPAC, Italy's UIL and Belgium's CNE met yesterday (Monday) in Madrid to demand Ryanair applies national labour legislation for each country where this is more generous than Irish employment law.
Also, they want to see all cabin crew treated the same and given identical working conditions, whether they are employed by the company or working through a temping agency.
Additionally, they have called for the firm to honour their elected union representatives and agree to negotiate industry-wide working conditions agreements with them.
If Ryanair refuses to comply with their requests, cabin crew will start preparing, from July 1, to hold a series of strikes.
According to USO's spokesman Ernesto Iglesias, given that rules covering industrial action differ from country to country, some of them could be ready to down tools as early as the second half of July or the first week in August.
Iglesias says the unions apologise in advance for any passenger inconvenience caused by the strikes, but he 'trusts' that Ryanair will 'recapitulate' and take action to avoid this 'last resort'.
He says cabin crew presented their requests to the company in April and requested talks begin, but the unions consider that the firm is 'continuing with its intention of imposing unacceptable conditions', such as 'who is allowed to negotiate on behalf of the workers' or even that union representatives 'carry out their tasks outside of working hours', despite the fact that in Spain at least, these representatives are permitted by law to work for their unions within their normal daily schedule.
The USO spokesman says Ryanair is attempting to exclude cabin crew who work via temping agencies from the negotiations, despite their being in the majority, which he says is 'clear and unacceptable discrimination' since 'they do the same jobs in the same planes as those employed by the company', except 'in poorer conditions'.
Spanish law dictates that temping agency, or ETT workers must enjoy the same conditions as those employed directly by the company, but Iglesias says this is not the case with Ryanair cabin crew.
He claims staff were 'disciplined' for their Easter strike in Portugal, even though such industrial action is a legal right, and says cabin crew are 'pressured' into selling items on board 'under threat of being transferred to another country', and are 'expected to take a career break for long-term illness'.
According to Iglesias, Ryanair is 'the only airline in Europe which applies Irish labour law in all countries where it operates', which means it is 'able to compete in conditions much more advantageous for the firm at the cost of workers' rights'.
Chairman of Portuguese union SNVPAC, Bruno Fialho, blames Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary for the situation that could lead to strikes, insisting that none of the unions 'has anything against' the airline, since it has 'created loads of jobs for loads of people'.
