Ryanair refuses to meet joint employee committee

Michael O’Leary has insisted his employees have the best job security in Europe, as well as a “sophisticated” collective bargaining process.

The Ryanair CEO claimed “misinformation” was circulated by competitor pilot unions in the wake of September’s pilot rostering failure. He said the misinformation was a “predictable by-product” of the crisis.

He said: “Since Ryanair has, for over 30 years, operated a sophisticated collective bargaining process, supported fully by our pilots and cabin crew — confirmed and validated by the Irish Supreme Court — the only way our existing five-year base agreements can be changed [some of which run to 2020] is by negotiation between the airline and our base ERCs [employee representative councils].”