Ryanair pigeon holed once more at High Court

It’s a hard life being Michael O’Leary. Michael is best known for who he dislikes; politicians, disabled, employees who want to join a union, bolshie passengers and bloggers have all felt the sharp end of Mullingar’s most famous taxi-man’s tongue. Mick is back in the courts this week as he continues his anti-union campaign. His target once more is a Captain Goss. There’s history there already; a few years ago Captain Goss was in the courts with his employers because Goss was victimised when he tried to organise a union in Ryanair. As part of these proceedings Goss sought the jailing of O’Leary on grounds of contempt. However prison is hard enough so inmates in Mountjoy were spared the misery of O’Leary’s nonsense on that occasion. Today Captain Goss is back in court against Ryanair. Ryanair has disciplined him for putting election literature last December in staff pigeon holes. The election literature related to internal staff elections to elect staff member to a negotiating committee for which Goss was a candidate. It’s Ryanair’s view that this constituted an abuse as the pigeon holes were only for company business. But is not the election of a staff committee to negotiate with the management company business? Given that his main rival Aer Lingus recognise and negotiate with unions what’s the problem? Has the case more to do with style of management? Is it not the case that O’Leary believes that no one is going to tell him how to run the company in the interest of his shareholders, and that means regulators, unions, politicians or airport authorities? That’s what he thrives on and I suspect that many people like his style. Being anti-union is now popular in a key sector of enterprise. The economic slump is now seen as the environment to undo much of what has been achieved in my lifetime. Unions are seen as regulation and a brake on the economy and the entrepreneurial spirit that is needed to re-boot our economy. Partnership is now passé. ISME and IBEC want to roll back much of what was achieved on the basis of affordability; minimum wage, welfare, benefits, union representation. About a year ago I debated the minimum wage with an ISME rep on South East Radio and the audience reaction was strongly supportive of me. Its now at the point where workers rights are a luxury for the good times and the first thing to go when management screws up. I wonder now if the debate was held how the audience would react given how unemployment has rocketed? I sincerely hope that Captain Goss wins his case. Its at times like this that constitutional rights of association long established as the basis of union organisation need to upheld in this state and that companies need to be told that workers rights aren’t just what the company may decide to grant but are entitlements that every worker has regardless.

Gormley’s Ryanair flight of fancy

Isn’t John Gormley very lucky to live in the ideal world? When he goes to a conference in Poland he can take Ryanair there and back. No long conference drawing out negotiations into the night but the conference finishes up well in time for the Minister and his party to make the check in time and wait for their flight. Maybe soon Minister Gormley will follow further the logic of his fancy for Ryanair and get Michael O’Leary to taxi him to and from the airport in the taxi he uses to evade gridlock and allow Minister Gormley leave the state car at home.
Interesting that John Gormley should set out his appetite for Ryanair at a time when it’s CEO has targeted the national carrier where the government holds 25% for a takeover. One wonders however given Ryanair’s new charges for additional baggage as to whether Ryanair will always turn out as good value as the minister believes. Given the possible size of a ministerial delegation, could you imagine paying the excess to Ryanair for luggage or hand baggage to be checked in on the spot for Poland to Dublin especially if the conference coincides with the Ryanair annual fares hike for the Christmas holdays?
Can’t see that as presenting value! Not to mind the terror on the face of the hapless Gormley should conference business over run beyond the Ryanair last departure and perhaps requiring an over night to connect the next day with the next flight.
When the Green Party entered government they made a precondition a Carbon offsetting scheme by which trees were planted to compensate for government jet flights and the CO2 emissions generated as a result. The intention was that government business would be carbon neutral. I’m not sure if the Green Party’s interest in Ryanair is motivated by one of cost, environment or the need to grandstand. The government jets are the sole fixed wing jet aircraft flown by the Irish Air Corps. Pilots are employed by the air corps as are flight attendants and paid an annual salary. The cost of the government jet at €8,000 per hour includes these salaries, if it’s sitting on the tarmac and Baldonnel it’s still costing, and that charge includes all 14 passengers carried so given a 2 hour flight and Ryanair’s routes to well away from main urban centres that you wish to go to and then transport has to be organised to take minister and officials the extra distance to the meeting. However
Ryaniar won’t refund if you miss your flight and instead will charge you through the teeth to travel if you arrive at the airport looking to board. So the good value that the minister thinks could be there may exist only in his mind.

I’ve a more effective way of cutting Ministerial costs. To be fair to the Greens I’m stealing one of their motto’s Reduce, Reuse and Recylce. How about re-visiting the number of Minister’s of State and reducing the number by 5 each cabinet member having just one junior? Reuse the cash saved on the minister, the entourage and the office and recycle the ex Junior Ministers as legislators?
Minister Gormley will shortly be re-locating to Wexford. The new offices for the Department of Environment are close to completion and work is progressing. The office is close to cycle lanes and the Bus Eireann stop as well the local town service stop. If the minister is as good as his word in the national media on reducing green house gases, I expect to see the Minister either alighting from an expressway bus or waiting for a connecting bus to the railway station as he sets out for Dail Eireann. I imagine he’ll be peddling down to the farmer’s market every Friday as it offers a great range of naturally produced local food at exceptional value. After all the Green Party don’t grandstand, do they?

O'Leary's Aer Lingus move flies in the face of competition

You learn something new every day. I always thought Michael O’Leary supported competition. Competition or so the text books suggest is in the interest of consumers. Now however that is not the case. No one can deny that the arrival of Ryanair on the market brought development of the aviation industry out of Ireland. There is a negative side to Ryanair, anti-union, anti-disability, publicity seeking CEO, routes landing at airports remote from cities they claimed to fly to. I’ve never flown Ryanair. I choose not to fly with an airline that broke a strike but I hope that my principles don’t influence my wider view of the aviation industry given that Aer Lingus coined the phrase “enviromentaal push factors” when it was a state company to get rid experienced workers so as to get its wages bill down. Your choice if you want to fly off this island is between a strike breaker and an ageist bully. To complicate the matter one owns 25% of the other!

I don’t believe that this move is in the interest of consumers, Seamus Brennan famously saved Ryanair by awarding them Stansted at the expense of Aer Lingus. This move if it goes through will see a virtual monopoly on one of the ‘worlds busiest corridors between Dublin & London in favour of Ryanair. This plan may be in the interest of Ryanair’s shareholders many of them who live outside the state but its not in the interest of Ireland nor the consumer.

However Michael O’Leary is smart to the wider reality. The reality is that Brian Cowen’s disastrous tenure in Finance has seen tax revenues plummet and that the government needs money. There is a chance that the €175M price tag on the government 25% share would now tempt the government into selling leaving O’Leary owning over 50% before he buys shares on the open market. The ESOP will then be isolated and marginalised. If that happens I expect that Michael will immediately restore Heathrow flights out of Shannon.

I remember being on South East Radio when FF went for privatisation and I forecast that within a few years Aer Lingus would end up being a shamrock on the tail of an aircraft. It seems that Michael O’Leary the well known taxi-driver from Mullingar was listening and now the wheels have been set in motion!

I hope that Ryanair’s plan is shot down. When Ryaniar outgrew our local regional airport here in the south east they weren’t long upping sticks and leaving the region high and dry because it was in the interest of the shareholders. Nothing that has happened in the 20 years since has changed Ryanair’s priorities. Competition is just a fanciful ploy used by a company to boost sales. They’re only interested in themselves. Replacing a state monopoly with a private monopoly is a waste of time and exposes the neo-liberal economic view for the sham it is.