Ryanair pilots in Italy are the latest to call on the airline and its chief executive, Michael O'Leary, to begin talks with representatives of a group seeking to negotiate new collective agreements with the company.
A recently formed European Employee Representative Council (EERC) is campaigning to negotiate on behalf of Ryanair's 4,000-plus pilots with the support of unions in countries where the airline operates.
A letter to Mr O’Leary and other executives, delivered to the carrier’s offices in Milan, names 10 Italy-based pilots as the Ryanair company council in Italy.
In common with a letter from Irish pilots earlier this week, it urges Ryanair to enter talks with the EERC on pilot representation at the airline and states that Ryanair will have to negotiate national contracts with its Italian pilots.
Support
The letter is from Italian pilots’ union Anpac, which says that with its support, the 10 individuals will negotiate a collective agreement with Ryanair for pilots in Italy.
It is the latest step in campaign by the EERC that involves pilot unions across Europe writing to Ryanair calling on it to enter talks. Irish and Swedish unions wrote earlier this week.
The letters all include the names of the company council members. When the EERC began circulating material two months ago, in the wake of the airline having to cancel flights because of rostering problems, Ryanair pointed out that it was anonymous.
The pilots named in the letter are Alessandro Bedodi, Luigi Dal Padullo, George Edgeworth, Mattia Galuppo, Giovanni Genovesi, Christian Klaeren, Matteo Oggioni, Francesco Pittini, Soren Roelsgaard and Alessandro Zanatta.
Ryanair responded that “this worthless letter from competitor pilot unions has no validity and is ignored by both Ryanair and our pilots”.
Councils
Ryanair does not deal with trade unions, but says that it does not ban staff from joining them. Instead it negotiates individual deals with employee representative councils at all its 86 bases.
The company points out that the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that this system meets all the requirements of a sophisticated collective bargaining process.
Ryanair said that a further 36 pilots joined the airline last week, bringing to 1,081 the number it had recruited since January 1st.
The airline added that it was "inundated with applications from pilot union members in Monarch, Air Berlin, Italia", that are facing redundancy or pay cuts.
