Charlie Smith
SPAIN’S High Court has ordered Ryanair to bring back 224 members of staff it sacked across Spain.
Judges said the Dublin-based company’s reason for the redundancies – that it was closing four bases – was ‘not good enough’.
Michael O’Leary’s budget airline has been told it needs to reinstate workers ‘in the same working conditions’ with ‘immediate payment of wages not received’, according to Reuters.
The travel giant has told its lawyers to launch an appeal.
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It comes after the low-cost operator was set to axe its bases at Tenerife, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Girona on January 8 this year.
Ryanair fired workers at these regional sites, although it U-turned in Girona and was accused of ‘pressuring’ employees there to accept pay cuts of up to 25% on new contracts.
The layoffs were in response to the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX planes in the wake of an Ethiopian plane crash, which claimed the lives of 157 people.
In court Ryanair lawyers failed to convince judges that a combination of the Boeing situation and Brexit was enough to get rid of staff.
“I hope this makes it clear to them (Ryanair) they have to comply with the law and begin to change their attitude,” said Gustavo Silva, of USO, one of a trio of unions that sued the company.
In July Ryanair announced that it planned to cut 900 jobs from its 13,000-strong workforce.
Good for the High Court and the Unions it was time the Mr O’Leary was taken down from his perch.