Norway :RYR against unions and PM ?

http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/ryanair-boss-denies-employees-treated-084607981.html

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary was in Norway on Thursday to reject accusations that his low-cost airline treated its employees like slaves, as unions and politicians in the Scandinavian state called for a boycott of the firm.

His trip came as two former stewards prepared to sue the Irish carrier for unfair dismissal and breaching labour laws.
"It was a contract of slavery," said Vegard Einan of the Parat union that is assisting the two women in their lawsuit.

O'Leary, speaking to reporters at Rygge airport, said that his firm fully respected European legislation and that he was the victim of "a series of false claims".

The airline is the target of growing criticism in Norway, where politicians and unions are calling for travellers to boycott it because of its contested labour practices.

On Wednesday, Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg declared that he would never travel with Ryanair, a no-frills airline which makes most of its money by charging for optional extras

These policies are also used by large cruise liner company's and others.
The latest wage scam is .. (IMO).. because the Norwegian government are running scared and don't want Ryanair's low fares disrupting their own local airlines traffic and offering locals lower fares today rather than tomorrow.
With Ryanair Norways flying public may see prices from SAS,Norwegian Air and Widerøe drop, is that bad.

The airline will fight off any such legal claims, either from the unions, their employees or state officials. The spokesman claimed that cabin crews working for Ryanair in Norway work on Irish contracts and on Irish-registered aircraft that are legally defined as Irish territory: “Therefore they’re paid in Ireland and Irish law demands they pay Irish taxes and social costs in Ireland.”

The crew are not forced to work for Ryanair, they fully understand the wage structure before agreeing to take any position.
Norwegian governments don't want Ryanair in Norway due to the tough competition Ryanair bring leaving local airlines unsure of their future, after all a very large percentage of passengers will be drawn towards the carrier/s offering the same flight/s at a much cheaper fare.

http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=3053513;s=rollingnews.htm

Ryanair today reacted to allegations from some of its staff in Norway and elsewhere that it treats its staff like slaves in a manner the industry has come to expect from the Irish airline - utter contempt.

"Ryanair does not comment on anonymous internet trolls funded by the European Cockpit Association and this invented "group" has no standing whatsoever. Ryanair complies fully with all EU and Irish tax laws. Ryanair is an Irish registered company, regulated by the Irish authorities and all Ryanair employees work on Irish territory and are employed on Irish contracts," a spokesman said.

He was talking about allegations from pilots that it treats its staff like "slaves" having created hundreds of "shell" companies in Ireland and the UK to avoid tax across Europe and to force staff in to contracts that run roughshod over accepted norms.

http://www.startribune.com/business/202720721.html

Several Norwegian leaders are threatening to boycott Ryanair because of a labor dispute between the Ireland-based budget airline and a former employee who lives in Norway.
The ex-employee, an Italian, is threatening to sue the airline over allegedly poor working conditions she says fail to meet Norway's standards.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Bart Eide was quoted by the Klassekampen leftist daily Friday as saying that he won't fly on Ryanair again until the labor issues are resolved.
Other politicians, including the prime minister, have recently made similar comments.


I will permit myself two comments :
- were the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister actually flying Ryanair before ? Or is their boycott purely nominal ?
- why don't the Foreing Minister and the Prime Minister react on the same way when Norwegian Air Shuttel hire Asiatic pilots, and pay them half the salary of European pilots ?

atoutprix wrote:

I will permit myself two comments :
- were the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister actually flying Ryanair before ? Or is their boycott purely nominal ?
- why don't the Foreing Minister and the Prime Minister react on the same way when Norwegian Air Shuttel hire Asiatic pilots, and pay them half the salary of European pilots ?

I think they did..... but only chose to board using the "Other Q" Well a savings a saving.

Political nonsense as usual.

Money/currency Joke -
£€$.....

NOK NOK
Who's there?
Ryanair,
Ryanair who?
You Wish

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary dismissed the claims and described the former flight attendants as “unsuccessful and dismissed”.

He told the Norwegian press: “They just invented these false claims some six months after they were dismissed.” O’Leary argued no one was forced to work for Ryanair.

He said there was a waiting list for jobs and suggested the crew were “supported by labour organisations in the process of agreeing thousands of job cuts and 17% pay cuts in SAS”.

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2013/04/15/43728/ryanair+faces+call+for+boycott+in+norway.html

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2013/04/18/inspectors-set-to-land-on-ryanair/

In an open letter sent to Transport Minister Marit Arnstad this week, O’Leary claimed that allegations his airline engages in “social dumping” are also without merit. He maintains that Ryanair’s pay levels and working conditions comply with EU rules governing free movement of persons and services in international aviation, and that Norway has accepted such rules through its economic agreement with the EU, known as the EØS-avtale.
O’Leary has bashed “politicians and parliamentarians” including Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg over their claims that they won’t fly Ryanair, or their statements discouraging other Norwegians from patronizing the airline.
This week O’Leary could likely feel gratified that Norwegians don’t seem to be paying attention to their leaders’ exhortations, given the airline’s double-digit jump in ticket sales.
O’Leary could boast a 12 percent increase in ticket sales since the latest conflict around Ryanair hit the media last week.
“Lots of people have heard the noise around the company, which gives Ryanair publicity,” Espen Andersen, an assistant professor at Norwegian Business School BI who follows the airline industry closely, told newspaper Dagsavisen.
“Folks will fly cheaply as long as they have the chance. They probably agree that Ryanair employees should get paid sick leave and be protected from immediate firing, but if it suits them as consumers to get the lowest possible airfare, the fewest will give that up for idealistic reasons.”

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2013/07/16/ryanair-passes-authorities-test/

Extract :

Norwegian aviation authorities (Luftfartstilsynet) haven’t found any major violations at low fare carrier Ryanair, despite charges from former cabin personnel that the Irish airline subjected them to “slave contracts.”  

“We have asked the airline to clarify some points around the employees’ work hours and time off,” Bjørn Erlandsen of Luftfartstilsynet told  Aftenposten. “If that’s in order, we don’t have any objections to the way Ryanair operates in Norway regarding working conditions and security for the employees.”

Ryanair officials later said they won’t make the modifications requested. “Since these are Irish contracts for folks who work in Ireland, they must follow Irish and EU rules, not Luftfartstilsynet’s,” a spokesman told news bureau NTB.

While the Norwegian authorities seemed to exonerate Ryanair, they stressed that pay levels and benefits were not addressed in the inspection because that’s beyond their mandate. Rather, they examined the status of more general employment, health and safety issues at Ryanair.

The airline was said to be “systematic and adequate” in its systems for employment, health and safety issues, reported Aftenposten.no, but Ryanair was asked to include daily and weekly work time in its employees’ job contracts, along with the length of employees’ breaks. Most of the employees are technically hired through outside employment agencies, but Ryanair was urged to ensure that the agencies modify the contracts to get them in line with Norwegian law.

Ryanair employees based at Norway’s Rygge Airport south of Moss reportedly claimed they were satisfied with their jobs at Ryanair and wanted to keep them, while acknowledging that their contracts did not adequately ensure their rights.

Ryanair itself revealed that it has 179 employees attached to its base at Rygge, including 55 pilots and 124 cabin personnel. The airline has also placed six of its Boeing 737 aircraft at the Norwegian base.

The pilots were said to have individual and confidential agreements with the airline, working five days on and three days off, with payment tied to time they were airborne. Flight attendants’ pay was based on a fixed amount plus a percentage of sales on board. Their work schedules were said to be set 30 days in advance, but were subject to change based on the airline’s needs.

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2013/09/02/ryanairs-oleary-were-wonderful/

A few extracts :

“More great news for the Norwegian market!” exclaimed Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary as he swept into a conference room at Aker Brygge in Oslo late last week.

Within the space of a half-hour, O’Leary managed to claim or at least suggest that Norway’s politicians are inept, its court system may be biased, its airline rivals can’t compete with his “ultra-low-cost carrier” and that workers and aviation authorities are either lazy or overpaid or both.

The latter claim came in the context of Ryanair’s attempts, unsuccessful so far, to start service in Northern Norway, where most all the airports are controlled by state-owned Avinor. Landing fees that O’Leary considers “absurdly” high are keeping Ryanair out and he can’t understand why airport authorities don’t want more players in the market in addition to SAS, Norwegian and Widerøe. “‘Why should we,’” O’Leary quoted one airport official in Northern Norway as allegedly saying. “‘Then we’d have to work harder!’”

“Our passengers love us,” O’Leary claimed. He wants more of them, and confirmed Ryanair would also love to launch domestic routes in Norway if he and his colleagues can overcome the cost barriers that would also make his “ultra-low” fare carrier bleed.

The occasion for O’Leary’s latest meeting with Norwegian media was ostensibly the introduction of 10 new winter routes from Norway, seven from Ryanair’s base at the Rygge airport south of Moss (not controlled by Avinor, but rather by local authorities and business interests) and three from Torp outside Sandfjord.

“Why should we accept (labour) unions?” O’Leary questioned one reporter, for example, in response to a question about the lack of collective bargaining agreements between Norwegian labour unions and Ryanair employees based in Norway. “We see very little success in airlines with unions. Just look at SAS!” O’Leary denied Ryanair employees were barred from joining unions, as that would violate the Irish law to which Ryanair adheres. It’s just that Ryanair won’t negotiate with unions.

Ryanair’s conflicts with Norwegian politicians, authorities and labour organizations all revert back to O’Leary’s insistence that Ryanair is answerable only to Irish law, not Norwegian law or the laws of any other country where it operates.
The dispute remains the tax- and legal home of Ryanair and its crews. Norwegian law, O’Leary emphatically repeated “doesn’t apply to our people,” and Ryanair won’t accept Norwegian inspectors’ demands either. Rival Norwegian Air is also moving forward with plans to register its aircraft in Ireland with an Irish company owning them, as part of a new “asset management” strategy.

Meanwhile, O’Leary said he hoped “we see more of our new aircraft in Norway,” referring to the 175 new Boeing jets O’Leary said Ryanair has ordered. He said Ryanair wasn’t losing money in Norway, but admitted profits were “small.” That likely explains why’s he’s keen to expand and increase volumes in Norway, despite the conflicts and controversy surrounding the airline.

“Our passengers love us,” O’Leary repeated. “In summary, Ryanair is wonderful.”