Ryanair 'within its rights' not to promote claimants

RYANAIR IS within its rights not to promote staff who make industrial relations claims against it, the firm told the Employment Appeals Tribunal yesterday.

Frank Beatty for Ryanair told the tribunal the airline did not admit it had a ban on promoting those who took complaints against it – but he insisted it would not be unlawful if Ryanair did express such discrimination.

Mr Beatty was summing up in a case involving former Ryanair pilot Joe Peard (39) of Terenure in Dublin, now working with the Emirates airline in Dubai. Mr Peard claimed Ryanair pilots were told they would not be considered for promotion unless they signed a bond repudiating industrial relations complaints against the firm. He claimed that, following his reluctance to sign, the airline subjected him to a “systematic and ongoing campaign of harassment”, and managed its rosters in order to reduce his wages. He resigned on June 29th, 2007.

Mr Beatty insisted Ryanair’s position did not represent “a blanket ban” on promotion for those who had outstanding complaints against the company.

Mr Beatty argued that even if the firm had such a ban, it was not illegal. “You might find it distasteful or immoral, but it is not unlawful,” he said. Discrimination was prohibited in relation to gender, sexual orientation, race or membership of the Travelling community. But apart from the criteria “specifically laid down by statute, an employer can use any criteria to engage or promote staff”.

Referring to Mr Peard’s case, he said Ryanair was subjected to a campaign of complaints by the Irish Airline Pilots Association (Ialpa) and certain “militant” pilots, of whom Mr Peard was one.

Mr Beatty said Mr Peard had never availed of the firm’s internal grievance procedures.

For Mr Peard, Michael Landers of Ialpa said Mr Peard would have been “living in cloud cuckoo land” to believe the internal Ryanair mechanisms would have helped his case. “There wasn’t a slightest possibility that he would have been treated in a manner that was fair and not biased,” he said.