Ryanair decision - War not yet over in pilots dispute

Ryanair may have won the battle, but the war remains to be decided.

The Supreme Court yesterday decided in the airline’s favour in its appeal against a High Court judgment giving the Labour Court the right to investigate a dispute between Ryanair and its pilots.

IMPACT, the trade union which represents the Irish Airline Pilots Association, maintained that the dispute came within its jurisdiction.

Despite that decision, the highest court in the land ordered the dispute be returned to the Labour Court for a re-hearing to decide if it has the jurisdiction to take on the industrial dispute.

The wider implications of the judgment may impact on disputes in other companies which do not recognise representation of workers by trade unions.

Immediately however, in the present case, the Supreme Court did not make any determination on the substantive issues involved but arrived at its decision because it found the procedures followed in the Labour Court were incorrect.

Importantly, in his report Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan said the Labour Court decided against Ryanair to a large extent because of omissions in the airline’s documentation, and as a result of a view put forward by the union that Ryanair’s employee representative committee was a consultative body only.

He was also critical of the company in that he said there was an unfortunate reluctance on the part of Ryanair to engage in the real issues. There was, he said, continual propaganda in correspondence as to how excellent the company was rather than taking up the issues point-by-point.

Whatever the wider implications of the legislation introduced in 2004, as regards its scope and effectiveness, it is repugnant to suggest it was never intended to apply to what the airline termed “high pay multi-nationals” like Ryanair.

The dispute began in the summer of 2004 because the airline commenced the conversion of its Dublin fleet, and consequently about 90 pilots had to be re-trained. They were given an ultimatum by this “high pay multi-national” that they could pay €15,000 for the training, or alternatively sign a bond abandoning their entitlement to raise matters with the Labour Court. They paid the €15,000.

When it inevitably became a contentious issue it was referred to the Labour Court, as was their right under the provisions of the 2001 and 2004 Industrial Relations Acts, which make allowance for the referral of disputes where the employer does not engage in collective bargaining.

Ryanair’s position was that it had traditionally operated non-union recognition, and the relevant acts were being used by the pilots to get compulsory trade union recognition through the back door.

It was rather disingenuous of the company’s director of personnel, Eddie Wilson, to describe the result as a victory for the airline. For him to add that the legislation was not to be used for pilots on over €100,000 because it was meant to be for low-paid workers was even more so.

Whatever the outcome, there cannot be, and there should not be, a two-tier system of industrial relations.