The rebellion of the Ryanair employees does not calm down. On the contrary. From north to south of Europe, low cost employees are intensifying strikes and actions to obtain better wages and working conditions in a context of a strong recovery in traffic.
Remember that during the Covid-19 health crisis, employees had accepted salary cuts so that the company kept its head afloat.
Faced with a management that turns a deaf ear to salary demands, new movements are to be expected.
5 months of slow strike in Spain?
USO, the Ryanair cabin crew union in Spain, called this Wednesday a strike from Monday to Thursday between August 8 and January 7 through regular 24-hour work stoppages…
“Since Ryanair has not made the slightest attempt to approach the unions” and “having publicly stated its refusal to dialogue”, the USO and the SITCPLA “are forced to extend” the strike again, these two unions assured. . in a press release.
Thus, new 24-hour work stoppages will take place from August 8, from Thursday to Friday. This movement will continue “until January 7 inclusive”, that is, for a period of five months, the USO and the SITCPLA specify.
The employees had already been on strike for twelve days: from July 12 to 15, from July 18 to 21 and from July 25 to 28 at the ten Spanish airports where the Irish company operates, causing disorders in the middle of the summer season.
In June, the first part of the strike also involved company employees in other European countries such as Portugal, Belgium, Italy and France.
The company’s pilots are not left out. While Ryanair has announced that it has reached a 5-year salary agreement with the French and Spanish pilot unions, this is not the case in Belgium, where a strike last weekend caused the cancellation of a third of its flights.
“You will be on strike for a long time…”
The radicalism of the unions is also explained by a management that constantly practices the balance of power. Ryanair is thus the only international company that does not have a collective agreement in Spain, according to the unions.
As for the strike in Belgium, a war of attrition is brewing: “so be it, but you will be on strike for a long time,” the company wrote to the pilots, even threatening to leave the country.
Still, Ryanair’s strategy is well known. The company had already raised the same threat in Marseille or in Portugal after numerous social tensions.
Also, some unions are not fooled. For the permanent secretary of the CNE Yves Lambot quoted by the Belgian media Mosquitothese threats are “pipe” given that Ryanair, like most airlines, has to manage a very strong recovery and poorly anticipated traffic, so it needs all its bases and lines to meet demand.
Source: BFM TV
