Ryanair has secured leave from the High Court to challenge a finding by the Labour Court that there is a trade dispute between Ryanair and the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA) concerning Ryanair's Dublin-based pilots.
Mr Martin Hayden SC, for Ryanair, was yesterday granted leave by Ms Justice Macken to bring proceedings challenging a number of findings of the court arising from the decision by the IMPACT trade union, of which IALPA is a part, to ask the Labour Court to investigate an alleged trade dispute between IMPACT/IALPA over Ryanair's Dublin-based pilots.
Ryanair contends there is no trade dispute between it and Impact and that Impact is not entitled to "intermeddle" in Ryanair's affairs.
After considering the matter, the Labour Court decided on January 25th last that there is a trade dispute, and it is that and other findings which Ryanair seeks to overturn in its judicial review proceedings.
Ryanair also wants orders quashing the Labour Court's decision that it was not Ryanair's practice to engage in collective bargaining and that there was or is no operative internal dispute procedure in place within the private airline.
In an affidavit, Mr Eddie Wilson, director of personnel with Ryanair, said Impact had asked the Labour Court in November last to investigate an alleged trade dispute between it and Ryanair over the airline's Dublin-based pilots.
Ryanair accepted the right of all employees to join, or not join, trade unions but it did not accept that it, as an employer, was compelled to negotiate with any trade union. It had been the policy and practice of Ryanair for many years to deal directly with its employees without the "intermeddling" of trade unions, and this system had served Ryanair employees "very well", he said.
Ryanair believed the Labour Court had no jurisdiction to carry out an investigation as the criteria for such an investigation, as set out in the Industrial Relations Act 2001, had not been met.