Ryanair Cabin Crew Announces Six-Day Strike This Summer

Ryanair cabin crew in Spain have announced plans to hold six days of strikes in late June and early July in protest of working conditions and pay.

Staff on the budget airline are set to walk out on 24, 25, 26 and 30 June and 1 and 2 July, according to Unión Sindical Obrera (USO), the Spanish trade union.

News of the strike comes after labour organisations including SITCPLA, the Airlines Cabin Crew Independent Union, and USO came together to demand an uplift in pay, claiming staff would have 'no other option' but to walk out if their demands were not met.

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The unions are maintaining conversations with unions in Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal if Ryanair refuses to negotiate, with a spokesperson for SITCPLA saying: "We’re coordinating our actions with European counterparts."

Strikes in the UK have not been announced, but the walkout may create a barrier in Ryanair's recovery from coronavirus travel restrictions during one of the busiest travel periods.

A letter from Ryanair director Darrell Hughes seen by Bloomberg News has revealed Ryanair called off talks in Spain earlier this month after the unions threatened a staff walkout, with talks on a collective agreement making 'almost no progress' due to what the carrier described as the unions’ 'unrealistic demands and refusal to meaningfully engage'.

Meanwhile, USO and STCPLA released a joint statement claiming Ryanair lacked commitment to dialogue and accusing the airline of acting in bad faith.

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In a statement to LADbible, a spokesperson for Ryanair said: "Ryanair has negotiated collective agreements covering 90% of our people across Europe. In recent months we have been negotiating improvements to those agreements as we work through the Covid recovery phase.

"Those negotiations are going well and we do not expect widespread disruption this summer. In Spain, we are pleased to have reached a collective agreement with CCOO, Spain’s largest and most representative union, delivering improvements for Spanish-based cabin crew and reinforcing Ryanair’s commitment to the welfare of its cabin crew.

"These announcements by the much smaller USO and SITCPLA unions are a distraction from their own failures to deliver agreements after three years of negotiations and we believe that any strikes they call will not be supported by our Spanish crews".

According to Invest In Spain, Ryanair currently employs more than 2,000 permanent workers in Spain, as well as maintaining more than 38,000 indirect jobs across the country.