An estimated 2,000 of Ryanair’s cabin crew staff could go out on strike across Europe at some stage this summer as the aviation sector in general heads into a season of discontent, union officials say.
Three trade unions representing aviation workers in Spain and Portugal have this week announced plans to take industrial action over working conditions and pay.
On Monday, Spanish-based staff represented by the USO and SITCPLA unions said they will walk out for two three-day strikes from June 24th to June 26th, and from June 30th to July 2nd. Union representatives, speaking in Madrid, said they would look to co-ordinate action with other unions representing Ryanair staff in Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal.
On Tuesday, Portugal’s union of civil aviation personnel SNPVAC said cabin staff based there will go on strike on June 24th, 25th and 26th. French cabin crew at Ryanair went on strike on Sunday and Monday of this week demanding better pay and working conditions.
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Ryanair said that SNPVAC represents less than 3 per cent of its cabin crew staff in Portugal.
“Ryanair has negotiated collective agreements covering 90 per cent of our people across Europe,” the airline said in a statement. “In recent months we have been negotiating improvements to those agreements as we work through the Covid recovery phase. Those negotiations are going well and we do not expect widespread disruption this summer.”
But Eoin Coates, head of aviation at the European Transport Workers’ Federation, said that unions in Italy and Belgium could follow the example set by colleagues in Spain and Portugal.
“I think the most likely country is probably Italy,” he said. “They are very close to the Spanish workers. And also the Portuguese workers are quite active in this group.”
Mr Coates said Ryanair had adopted a British “Anglo-Saxon” or “northern European approach to collective bargaining” in southern Europe in recent years.
“Ryanair said: ‘We deal with Fórsa in Ireland and Unite in the UK. We deal with one union and it’s simple,” he said. “Unfortunately, that’s not how it works elsewhere in Europe. They haven’t adapted,” Mr Coates said.
In Italy, for example, he said there are three unions that count Ryanair cabin crew staff among their membership. Ryanair does not have agreements in place with two of them, Filt-Cgil and Uiltrasporti, which represent an estimated “50 to 60 per cent” of the carrier’s Italian cabin crew, Mr Coates said.
The two unions held a four-hour walkout on June 8th, alleging that Ryanair had breached contract terms around pay and conditions. The disruption forced Ryanair to cancel 14 flights between Milan and London and others from other Italian airports and Stansted outside London.
Ryanair will only “negotiate with one of those three unions”, Mr Coates said, claiming this was against Italian law.
“The biggest thing for us is accepting the national law,” he said. “They need to negotiate with all the unions . . . that was a key part of the campaign in 2018: if you’re not complying with national law, the unions won’t accept that.”
Ryanair said these claims are “false” and that it complies in full with all national laws.
“We are pleased to have reached collective labour agreements in both Spain (CCOO) and Portugal (STTAMP) and we have an existing collective agreement in place with the representative unions in Italy (FIT-CISL, ANPAC and ANPAV),” Ryanair said.
“These minority union strikes are not supported by our crews. Zero crew participated in last week’s strike in Italy.”
Industrial relations strife is set to be a feature of the European summer this year across the aviation sector, which is struggling to scale back up to deal with the resurgence of summer air travel. Ground staff at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris held half a day of strike action last week, leading to the cancellation of more than 100 flights.
“If I was a passenger or consumer, I wouldn’t worry too much about the airlines. I’d worry about the airports,” Mr Coates said.
– Additional reporting: Bloomberg, Reuters.
