Ryanair to Face Select Committee Investigation Over Working Conditions

Ryanair will be investigated by two parliamentary committees after allegations about employee working conditions, including that the airline has been "trying to wriggle out" of paying its staff the national minimum wage./ the Guardian

Frank Field, who chairs the work and pensions committee, and Rachel Reeves, who chairs the business select committee, on Wednesday wrote to the airline's boss, Michael O'Leary, to demand answers to a string of allegations raised by Ryanair's staff.

The damaging claims come after Ryanair finally agreed to recognise pilot and cabin crew unions in order to avert a pre-Christmas strike.

"Sadly, it will not surprise me if the sorry picture painted here is true: a company that turned in £1.15bn profit last year squeezing its workers," Field said. "People who work long, hard hours and have an important role in passenger safety, and yet apparently cannot count on receiving the national minimum wage - or even close to it.

"Ryanair once tried to make its passengers pay to use the loo - now they even make their workers pay to quit. As well as foisting a host of other miserly - and potentially unlawful - requirements on them."

The letter to O'Leary sets out detailed allegations, including staff having to pay £25 a month for their uniform in the first year of employment and having a £175 "administration cost" taken from their salaries if they leave the company in the first 15 months of employment.

Reeves said: "These allegations of hours of unpaid work, of charges for uniforms, of fees being incurred to leave, suggest a company falling well short of its duty to the staff who help their planes get off the ground and who spend the flight attending to and serving its paying customers.

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