Ryanair Strike, Industrial relations discussion Mod note in post 1

LeChienMefiant

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

So it's leverage then, not the media.

In that case yes, leverage was key.

Irish Steve

LeChienMefiant wrote: »

It's a bit different controlling a piece of major infrastructure in the city versus having the ability to shut down a little over a dozen flights a day that no one cares about.

I suspect that the close on 2000 people affected each day might have a different view on that.

billy few mates

LeChienMefiant wrote: »

It's a bit different controlling a piece of major infrastructure in the city versus having the ability to shut down a little over a dozen flights a day that no one cares about.

Clearly somebody cares about them...

Bob24

Irish Steve wrote: »

I suspect that the close on 2000 people affected each day might have a different view on that.

Of course those people are not happy, and a cancelled flight is more trouble that a cancelled tram.

But having said that (and especially since 75% of pilots based in ireland are contractors), I really don’t think Ryanair employees have nearly the same disruption capability as Veolia employees did: a day of LUAS strike is impacting tens of thousands (I believe close to 100000).

LeChienMefiant

Bob24 wrote: »

Of course those people are not happy, and a cancelled flight is more trouble that a cancelled tram.

Is it? It's more important for me to be on time for my regular daily commute than have to re-plan ad hoc trips. Maybe if you were flying regularly you might be discommoded somewhat.

Bob24

LeChienMefiant wrote: »

Is it? It's more important for me to be on time for my regular daily commute than have to re-plan ad hoc trips. Maybe if you were flying regularly you might be discommoded somewhat.

With a flight you might have planned, struggled to find a common slot which works for all travellers in a group, booked hotels and other things (car rental, show tickets, train tickets, etc) in advance which are not necessarily refundable, etc ... possibly a lot of planning, time, and money going to waste due to the cancelled journey. It could also mean you are missing a wedding, critical work meeting, or any other event which was a once off and very important to you.

The tram doesn’t come in the morning? Of course it’s annoying but you will most likely find another way to get to work or work from home, and if it is affecting everyone in the city any decent employer will be accommodating with staff.

But of course as I said, because a cancelled flight is more impactful than not having tram service at an individual level, IMO the much larger number of people impacted and the long lasting strike did give Veolia staff more nuisance power than Ryanair’s.

billy few mates

Plus when your tram gets cancelled it won't normally leave you stranded in another country...

LeChienMefiant

Bob24 wrote: »

The tram doesn’t come in the morning? Of course it’s annoying but you will most likely find another way to get to work or work from home, and if it is affecting everyone in the city any decent employer will be accommodating with staff.

The luas strike was multiple days where multiples of the number of daily affected Ryanair passengers were affected. It was the same set of passengers every day, so massive impact on a limited set of people. They didn't have the luxury of moving to a different service on the same day as much of Ryanair passengers affected will. The routes affected are high frequency UK services that have lots of direct alternatives.

garhjw

Hopefully Ryanair carry through with redundancies and move forward from this.

billy few mates

garhjw wrote: »

Hopefully Ryanair carry through with redundancies and move forward from this.

What redundancies...?

CoisFharraige

garhjw wrote: »

Hopefully Ryanair carry through with redundancies and move forward from this.

Seriously? Do you think that the best way to deal with this is to make the pilots redundant and for them to suck it up so that we can all 'move forward on this'? What is left to move forward on if the striking pilots are made redundant (which won't can't happen to all of them.)

LeChienMefiant

CoisFharraige wrote: »

Seriously? Do you think that the best way to deal with this is to make the pilots redundant and for them to suck it up so that we can all 'move forward on this'? What is left to move forward on if the striking pilots are made redundant (which won't can't happen to all of them.)

There is probably a middle ground to be had somewhere. Ryanair is a great Irish success story and many of those pilots would never have realised their ambitions to fly without Ryanair. It would be a shame to see the importance of the Dublin base diminished.

billy few mates

garhjw wrote: »

Hopefully Ryanair carry through with redundancies and move forward from this.

You do know the difference between redundancy and constructive dismissal don't you...?
Or would you like me to explain it to you again...?

Nobody has mentioned redundancy (apart from a few trolls on here), Ryanair can't make the hundred pilots who took part in the strike 'redundant' because that would be illegal. If they do need to get rid of 100 pilots it would be 100 contractors that would have to go.
The contractors were not involved in the strike, I'm not sure why you're so desperate to see them (or anybody) dismissed...

The Veteran

It will not be constructive dismissal if Ryanair removes these folks from their payroll for a very simple reason - constructive dismissal involves the employee leaving not the employer dismissing.

The reality is that Ryanair could decide (legally) that it will outsource the supply of all pilots at dublin and make all of its Dublin employed pilots redundant. There is a question as to whether this would be a collective redundancy or not. In any event, the company would offer “moves” and if the relocation is reasonable in the given circumstance and a person refuses it then the redundancy is reasonable. But all bases it is not constructive dismissal.

Even if an employee left and took a constructive dismissal claim to the WRC, they are extremely difficult to succeed on as the burden of proof switches to the employee rather than employee in the unfair dismissal scenario.

A dismissal is unfair (in the legal definition sense) if it is as a result of union membership of activity; however Ryanair will be wise to that. At the same time, there is an obligation on the dismisses employee to minimize their loss and as such ryanair might actually hedge their bets. I have personal experience of Ryanair’s attitude to dismissing staff, they will and await the claim. But I need to say again, if they choose certain paths then redundancy does arise and unless an individual leaves it can never be constructive dismissal.

The strike is having minimal impact on Dublin Airport, it’s a side show

The Veteran

The Veteran wrote: »

It will not be constructive dismissal if Ryanair removes these folks from their payroll for a very simple reason - constructive dismissal involves the employee leaving not the employer dismissing.

The reality is that Ryanair could decide (legally) that it will outsource the supply of all pilots at dublin and make all of its Dublin employed pilots redundant. There is a question as to whether this would be a collective redundancy or not. In any event, the company would offer “moves” and if the relocation is reasonable in the given circumstance and a person refuses it then the redundancy is reasonable. But all bases it is not constructive dismissal.

Even if an employee left and took a constructive dismissal claim to the WRC, they are extremely difficult to succeed on as the burden of proof switches to the employee rather than employee in the unfair dismissal scenario.

A dismissal is unfair (in the legal definition sense) if it is as a result of union membership of activity; however Ryanair will be wise to that. At the same time, there is an obligation on the dismisses employee to minimize their loss and as such ryanair might actually hedge their bets. I have personal experience of Ryanair’s attitude to dismissing staff, they will and await the claim. But I need to say again, if they choose certain paths then redundancy does arise and unless an individual leaves it can never be constructive dismissal.

The strike is having minimal impact on Dublin Airport, it’s a side show

Also meant to say, Fórsa represents several other groups at the airport - Aer Lingus staff; civil servants and fire crews amongst others and there has been absolutely no spread, so the strike is largely a side show. 100,000 passengers a day is the norm at present, cancellations affecting 2,000; in a sort of a way “so what” in terms of overall inpact

billy few mates

Once again, it's the job that becomes redundant not the person...

billy few mates

The Veteran wrote: »

Also meant to say, Fórsa represents several other groups at the airport - Aer Lingus staff; civil servants and fire crews amongst others and there has been absolutely no spread, so the strike is largely a side show. 100,000 passengers a day is the norm at present, cancellations affecting 2,000; in a sort of a way “so what” in terms of overall inpact

That's good, would hate to see too many of the travelling public discomoded.
Hopefully both sides can come to an agreement before this drags on too long.

The Veteran

Billy the job not the person becomes redundant as you say but that still does not represent constructive dismissal. Also, there are very specific grounds set out in statute as to what constitutes a redundancy - it includes effectively moving jobs “off shore”.

billy few mates

The Veteran wrote: »

Billy the job not the person becomes redundant as you say but that still does not represent constructive dismissal. Also, there are very specific grounds set out in statute as to what constitutes a redundancy - it includes effectively moving jobs “off shore”.

Yes and if you read back through the thread you'll see that the people being made redundant will have to be offered these jobs and if the company ever decides to expand in Dublin again they'll likely have to be offered to those same people. They can't just redeploy a large number of staff to another country and replace them with others, that's not redundancy.
If they need to redeploy staff to Poland they'll have to start with the contract staff before moving on to the permanent employees but it's never going to come to that.

garhjw

billy few mates wrote: »

You do know the difference between redundancy and constructive dismissal don't you...?
Or would you like me to explain it to you again...?

Nobody has mentioned redundancy (apart from a few trolls on here), Ryanair can't make the hundred pilots who took part in the strike 'redundant' because that would be illegal. If they do need to get rid of 100 pilots it would be 100 contractors that would have to go.
The contractors were not involved in the strike, I'm not sure why you're so desperate to see them (or anybody) dismissed...

Get your facts straight before you start waffling

realitykeeper

I think Michael O`Leary should face down the strikers. Leo Varadkar`s unhelpful intervention was to express the opinion that pilots could escalate the strike in response to the protective notices that were issued to the pilots. In other words, Ryanair should give in to the pilots. I would suggest Leo Varadkar could learn a lot from Michael O`Leary. Lets says they pilots do up the anti in response to the protective notices that have been issued, surely the principled response would be to let the pilots know that instead of a few redundancies, they can now expect a lot.

Now, to make things interesting, lets says the unions manage to persuade the public to punish Ryanair for the disrupted services and the public vote with their feet and fly with other airlines, the obvious solution is for Ryanair to reduce its services in Dublin accordingly, even if it means an end to all Ryanair flights into and out of Dublin.

In the past, flights were far more expensive because Aer Lingus had a monopoly and without Ryanair the future might not be much better. After all, if Brexit stops British airlines flying over Irish airspace, easyjet are not going to be able to fill the gap. I mean, how can easyjet land here if they can`t even use our airspace.

Seems to me that it is in the interests of everyone to support Ryanair over the pilots and their henchmen in the unions and the Dáil. Leo Varadkar really must learn to say no to strikers. If they want more money, tell them to get a second job.

billy few mates

garhjw wrote: »

Get your facts straight before you start waffling

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=107635621&postcount=463 :rolleyes:

billy few mates

the obvious solution is for Ryanair to reduce its services in Dublin accordingly, even if it means an end to all Ryanair flights into and out of Dublin

This is the part where I stopped reading...

Wanderer78

realitykeeper wrote:

Seems to me that it is in the interests of everyone to support Ryanair over the pilots and their henchmen in the unions and the Dáil. Leo Varadkar really must learn to say no to strikers. If they want more money, tell them to get a second job.

You really seem to have it for the labour class, it's important to realise what has actually made companies such as Ryanair successful, it has in fact been the hard work of its employees, both past and present, on all levels. If we continue this assault on workers, it will increase the likelihood of further disputes and in fact economic and political destabilisation.

Bob24

realitykeeper wrote: »

I the obvious solution is for Ryanair to reduce its services in Dublin accordingly, even if it means an end to all Ryanair flights into and out of Dublin.

billy few mates wrote: »

This is the part where I stopped reading...

Same here ... or maybe they should stop all service based in Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal since they are also facing strikes in these countries and they staff is getting some institutional/public sympathy, that would teach their staff and the public in those countries a lesson ;-)

Brendan Bendar

hmmm ....a lot of sourness creeping into things here.

I see a lot of industrial relations problems and issues in FR over the coming months as things try to 'equalise'after years of no unions,and both sides grapple with the change in work practices and corporate attitude.

There is going to have to be balancing on both sides and a realisation that all the issues wont be fixed over a week or two.

Goin in bullheaded by either side could result in carnage which would help nobody.

interesting times ahead for sure.

Tenger

realitykeeper wrote: »

I think Michael O`Leary should face down the strikers..........................
........................................
........................................
Seems to me that it is in the interests of everyone to support Ryanair over the pilots and their henchmen in the unions and the Dáil. Leo Varadkar really must learn to say no to strikers. If they want more money, tell them to get a second job.

Point of fact; they aren’t striking over pay demands. It’s publc knowledge that Ryanair pay their flight crew very well. This is about a administrative ordering of ‘length in service’ which is an easy fix as each staff member has a staff number from the day they join up (full time and contractor)
You must be unaware that Ryanair make €350M+ profit per year, or that they charge all passengers the sum 50 cent per ticket so that the company themselves don’t have to absorb the cost of offering wheelchair assistance (as other airlines do)

But maybe you’re right, maybe Leo can learn from O’Leary......

billy few mates

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

hmmm ....a lot of sourness creeping into things here.

I see a lot of industrial relations problems and issues in FR over the coming months as things try to 'equalise'after years of no unions,and both sides grapple with the change in work practices and corporate attitude.

There is going to have to be balancing on both sides and a realisation that all the issues wont be fixed over a week or two.

Goin in bullheaded by either side could result in carnage which would help nobody.

interesting times ahead for sure.

Agree, this dispute seems to have become way too personal. Nobody really knows what's going on behind the scenes. They really need to sit down with a third party with lots of experience in arbitration and conflict resolution and let them explain what's acceptable and what's not in these situations.

ZX7R

Tenger wrote: »

Point of fact; they aren’t striking over pay demands. It’s publc knowledge that Ryanair pay their flight crew very well. This is about a administrative ordering of ‘length in service’ which is an easy fix as each staff member has a staff number from the day they join up (full time and contractor)
You must be unaware that Ryanair make €350M+ profit per year, or that they charge all passengers the sum 50 cent per ticket so that the company themselves don’t have to absorb the cost of offering wheelchair assistance (as other airlines do)
But maybe you’re right, maybe Leo can learn from O’Leary......

Don't see what Ryanair profit has do do with any thing or if they charge 50cent to the customers, they are a business and profit is everything the same as every other business.
Most posters on this thread have a higher knowledge of aviation than I,but on ground level , every day people support for the poilet union has plummeted since anousing next Friday's strike, it's a big talking point

LeChienMefiant

Tenger wrote: »

You must be unaware that Ryanair make €350M+ profit per year, or that they charge all passengers the sum 50 cent per ticket so that the company themselves don’t have to absorb the cost of offering wheelchair assistance (as other airlines do)

They're a private company, they're entitled to make profits. So what if they have an up front and transparent levy to cover cost of wheelchair assistance? It's not like the other airlines are paying this out of the executives wages or something.