National cabin crew syndicate SNPVAC has criticised Ryanair’s decision to lay off 75 employees by not renewing their contracts which ended on Wednesday (January 8).
“Crewlink, the agency which recruits cabin crew for Ryanair, will stop working at the Faro base tomorrow, leading to the dismissal of crew members who have worked for the company for over 10 years,” the union said in a statement on Tuesday.
As readers may recall, Ryanair had planned to close its base at Faro Airport this year, due to concerns over the amount of money it was losing, before reaching an agreement to keep it open, albeit with two planes instead of three and the possibility of laying off around 80 employees (click here).
Says the union, the base will stay open with 55 cabin crew members, all of whom are hired directly by Ryanair and were “coerced by the airline into signing an addendum to their contract, which forced them to give up subsidies and retroactive payment dating up to November 2018”.
It adds that some people have worked for the company for over 10 years and “basically gave up their entire career” by accepting the deal, while those who did not accept it were “penalised for four months with an 80% cut to their wages under the intermittent contracts law”.
SNPVAC says it is not buying Ryanair’s reasoning for the layoffs, such as the delays in the delivery of the new Boeing 737 Max planes or a decrease of operations at the Faro base.
It also accuses the company of still failing to provide workers with basic rights such as holiday and Christmas allowances as well as workplace insurance.
The union adds that it has tried to meet with the company in a bid to “solve these and other problems that affect cabin crew based in Portugal” and has requested a meeting with all parliamentary groups and ministers in order to schedule a meeting at the national board of employment and workplace relations (DGERT).
