Thursday, March 28

Labor Inspectorate penalizes Ryanair for again violating the right to strike and for “scabbing” its crew members


Add and continue with the labor infractions and sentences against Ryanair in Spain. The Labor Inspectorate concludes in several minutes that the Irish low-cost airline once again violated the right to strike of its cabin crew, this time in the strikes called by USO and Sitcpla due to Ryanair’s refusal to negotiate the agreement with both collective. The Barcelona labor authority also notes “external scabbing”.

Labor Inspectorate sanctions Ryanair with a “very serious” offense for trying to prevent union elections in Santiago

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At the moment, the labor authority has issued six infringement acts against the multinational (five serious and one, the one in Barcelona, ​​very serious) for the violation of the right to strike of cabin crew at the Ryanair bases in Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, Alicante, Girona and in the Balearic Islands. Ryanair rejects the opinions of the Inspection, according to the documentation consulted by this medium.

In addition, they are pending the completion of the inspections carried out at the bases in A Coruña, Seville and Valencia.

It is not the first time that this same abuse has been detected by the low-cost company. It has already been sanctioned by the Labor Inspectorate in previous strikes and has also been sentenced in court by the National Court, among others.

The USO union has highlighted that “the workers are once again right after the violation of their right to strike, which we trust will render the almost 40 dismissals of crew members carried out by Ryanair for supporting the strike null and void.” Among those fired are the two union leaders of the strike, Lidia Arasanz and Manuel Lodeiro.

Although the figures for the sanctions imposed by the Labor Inspectorate on the multinational are not specified, all at their maximum level, the amounts of the infringements detected “range between 3,751 euros and 7,500 in the case of serious ones, and of 120,0006 to 225,018 euros, in the case of very serious ones ”, they recall in USO.

Excessive guards and lack of information

The Labor Inspectorate detects several conducts that it concludes are in violation of the right to strike of its crew members. The most serious is the one detected in Barcelona of “external scabbing”, when verifying “the external substitution of Barcelona base workers who decided to exercise their right to strike by workers from other bases, thus contravening the minimum services established by Resolution of the Ministry of Development and the consequent list of protected and unprotected flights ”, details the record in this case.

In addition, in the rest of the provinces, the labor authority detects behaviors such as establishing many more worker guards than those that exist on normal days, to guarantee that the flights leave at all costs. “This situation implies a proactive position that prevents workers from exercising their right to strike. Well, there are many more airport guards than there are on a normal work day,” concludes one of the inspections.

It also penalizes the “modification of the assignment to cabin crew of the minimum services initially assigned by other services without due notice, information or during rest time”, which is also added to “the lack of prior information from the representatives of workers regarding all scheduled flights and the nature of ‘protected’ flights.

As denounced by USO and Sitcpla, the labor authority does not endorse Ryanair’s interpretation of the minimum services decreed by Fomento, which was extended to the entire workforce even though they were not 100%. “The interpretation made by the company of the Resolution of the Ministry of Transport on minimum services that has annulled, de facto, in different airports, the possibility of workers to exercise the right to strike, since all of them are designated as minimum services”, Detect Inspection.

This caused that “the right to strike could not be put into practice and existed only theoretically,” concludes another of the proceedings.

USO has highlighted the performance of the Labor Inspectorate for its “very thorough” work. “We are surprised that even today there are governments like the one in the Canary Islands that receive a company that bases its business model on continuously breaking Spanish legislation with a red carpet of public money in the form of aid to tourism, with Spanish companies or foreigners who could do the same job while respecting the most basic rights of workers”, they have added from the union.



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