Ryanair cabin crew working from the Belgian airports Brussels Zaventem and Charleroi will go on strike next week. They will stop working for three days, from Friday 22 April to Sunday 24 April. This was reported by the Flemish trade union ACV Plus and the Walloon union CNE on Friday afternoon.
The strike follows failed negotiations for a new collective labor agreement. The previous collective labor agreement expired at the end of March. The labor agreement was in any case a fairly unique event for the Irish airline. Ryanair usually strongly resists more influence from staff and unions.
A final meeting between Ryanair and the unions on Friday was unsuccessful. About 650 people work for Ryanair at the two bases in Belgium, Brussels and Charleroi. Among them are 400 cabin crew members. The pilots are not participating in the strike. It is still unknown how many flights will be canceled due to the three-day strike.
Buy your own water
The work stoppage is based on a deep-rooted conflict over working conditions at the Irish budget airline. Employees and trade unions in Belgium have been complaining about poor personnel policy for some time. For example, salary slips are often incorrect, wages are not paid correctly and social documents are not in order. According to the unions, cabin crew must buy the bottles of water they want to consume on a flight.
“Some staff members who are no longer allowed to fly due to pregnancy, for example, have been without pay for months,” Hans Elsen of the ACV Plus trade union said to the Walloon broadcaster RTBF. “Ryanair has no respect for the well-being of its staff. It is shameful that such a large company continues to get away with ignoring basic labor rights in Belgium.”
The Labor Auditorate, part of the Belgian Public Prosecution Service that deals with labor law, has also received dozens of complaints about Ryanair, according to the unions.
Eindhoven
Ryanair has labor disputes with employees and unions not only in Belgium, but also in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. The basis is the question of whether employees are subject to the labor law of the country where they live or the country where Ryanair is based. In the second situation, it could be Ireland, Poland or Malta where Ryanair also has companies (and employees enjoy less protection). In 2017, the European Court of Justice ruled that an employee is subject to the law of the country where he or she resides.
Ryanair employees from the Eindhoven base went on strike in the autumn of 2018 for better working conditions. Much to Ryanair’s dismay. The company closed the base overnight. That cost dozens of pilots and cabin crew their jobs. Ryanair continued to fly from Eindhoven, but with fewer flights.
If an airline has a base at an airport, it has one or more aircraft stationed there and can depart directly from that base early in the morning. Now Ryanair first flies from elsewhere to Eindhoven and then on to a destination. That is less efficient.
“The closure was revenge for the strike,” says Joost van Doesburg of the Dutch trade union FNV, which organized the work stoppage together with pilots’ union VNV. Legal proceedings are currently underway between Ryanair and FNV. The union believes that the airline has committed a wrongful act against the employees and the union. Ryanair, however, was ahead of the FNV and started proceedings earlier.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 16 April 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of April 16, 2022