Thursday, 15 September 2016

New Ryanair Contracts – a step back in time!

After a number of Ryanair pilots‘ homes as well as offices of temporary employment companies were searched by the authorities in recent weeks, Ryanair has now offered new employment contracts to pilots in Germany.

A first analysis of these contracts however, has shown that they are not compatible with European or German law. To name a few:

 

• These contracts are subject to Irish law, but parts of the Irish Protection Against Unfair Dismissal Act have been excluded.
• To prevent financial losses due to illness, pilots are forced to work extra hours.
• The company reserves the right to force people into leave without pay.

This makes it next to impossible for a pilot to know beforehand what will be his or her eventual salary in any given month. These contracts are only designed to bypass the protections offered by the German employment law. Furthermore, the pilots’ social security situation remains unclear at best.

“By retracting current contracts, Ryanair concedes to them being in violation of the law. However, instead of abiding to the law from now on, new contracts which continue to exploit employees and the social security systems are currently being issued” says Ilja Schulz, president of the German Pilots Association Vereinigung Cockpit (VC). “These new contracts, issued by Bluesky, a new temporary employment company, throw pilots working conditions back into the nineteenth century. They have no part in our society today” Schulz emphasizes.

„Other than bypassing employee rights and social laws, there are no reasons which would prevent an airline from actually employing their own pilots. This has to stop!” Schulz explains. He calls on Mrs. Nahles, Germany’s secretary of labor, to once and for all establish the relationship between Ryanair and its pilots.

„I would not sign such a contract at this time – especially since I would have strong doubts about its legal ramifications” Schulz confirms.

Only permanent contracts and collective labor agreements (CLAs) ensure legal certainty for both, pilots and employers. Permanent contracts would also mean an end to Ryanairs’ supposedly illegal attempts to bypass employment and social laws. In close cooperation with the Ryanair Pilots Group (RPG), VC is inviting Ryanair to begin CLA negotiations for pilots based in Germany.