In a historic turnaround in its relations with staff, Ryanair on Thursday recognised trade unions, prompting all but one union to suspend today's pilot strike.
In a move aimed at averting problems during the Christmas
holiday period, the Irish budget airline said it had written to
pilots' unions in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and
Portugal.
It said it had invited them to talks to legitimise them as
representative organisations in all those countries.
"Ryanair will change its long-term policy of not recognising
unions so as to avoid any threat of disruption to its customers
and flights during Christmas week," the low-cost airline said in
a statement.
Founder and CEO Michael O'Leary said "Christmas flights are
very important for our clients and we want to remove all concern
that they may be subjected to disruptions by the action of
pilots next week".
He said "if the best way to reach this objective is to speak
to our pilots via a recognised union process, then we are
prepared to do so and we have written to these unions today to
invite them to talks and asking them to cancel threatened action
over the Christmas week".
As a consequence of the overture by Rynair, Italian pilots'
association ANPAC suspended the Ryanair strike scheduled for
today.
ANPAC said it "welcomed the step forward taken" by the Irish
airline.
But the FIT-CISL union said it had not received any letter
from the airline.
Therefore, it said, it was going ahead with today's strike.
Industry Minister Carlo Calenda said Ryanair's recognition of
unions was "the bare minimum" it could do towards improving
labour relations.
"It is not a concession. It is the bare minimum, and it is
not enough," Calenda said.
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