EU orders Ryanair to meet European rules on local contracts

The EC ordered Ryanair Wednesday to respect EU rules by giving workers contracts in the country they live rather than in Ireland where its planes are registered. Europe’s largest low-cost carrier has traditionally employed a significant proportion of its staff under Irish law, which unions say inconveniences staff and impedes them from accessing local social security benefits. After a meeting with European Employment Commissioner Marianne Thyssen, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said the demand was “irrelevant” as the company had already written to unions in all EU countries offering to move staff to local contracts. Since announcing in December last year it would recognise trade unions for the first time in its 30-year history, Ryanair has accelerated a shift from Irish to local contracts as part of recognition talks with various unions. But the unions have held a series of strikes in recent months, citing disagreements over terms, including in several cases the question of local contracts. Ryanair has cancelled 150 flights on Friday due to the latest strike, by cabin crews in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. At a meeting in Brussels, Commissioner Thyssen told O’Leary that EU rules on employment for mobile air crews were clear - based not on the flag of the aircraft, but the place where workers left in the morning and returned in the evening. “Respecting the law is not something over which workers should have to negotiate and not something that can be postponed to a later date,” Thyssen said. In response, Ryanair published the terms of its offer to staff, including an offer of local contracts.<br/>