I agree with your sentiment but I think we should cut CNBC some slack here since the demands were only vaguely communicated by the syndicate ("improved wages and fairer working"), most likely because the negotiation is still ongoing.

What they could have mentioned is that the pilots strongly back the the strike with 96% of them voting for it.

One could look in to the circumstances that led the workers to feel the need to strike.

That would require proper journalism though.

IIRC one of the biggest complaints was that their workers in other countries still have to work under Irish labor laws which includes less holidays and PTO than they would deserve under laws of countries they actually live in.

You beat me to it.

Well, they at least note that the pilots want to be paid when they're on standby, which is not an unreasonable demand.

What is the norm in the industry? Is it different in Europe and the US? And between pilots and flight attendants? I hear in the US flight attendants are only paid when they're in the air (edit: or when the door is closed? or something along these lines), which seems unreasonable on its own, but given that it's the norm in the industry it would also seem extreme to go on a strike for that.

> ... but given that it's the norm in the industry it would also seem extreme to go on a strike for that.

I'm not sure I understand this sentence - changing the norms of industries is what mass strikes are good for. Strikes are most effective when bad practices are so widespread that job market itself can't fix them anymore.

I've had neighbors who are pilots (and 1 was a backup pilot who was always on call when someone couldn't show up).

They've explained that your hours count ONLY when the plane has closed the door and backed away from the gate. Then you are officially being paid for your time.

This explains the horror stories of "stuck on the runway". It's usually issues with weather/equipment/airport, etc. and it's not in the crew's best interest to just stay at the gate until the issue is resolved. If you're at the gate, the crew is not being paid.

I don't work in the industry, so I can't say for certain, but I at least know that SAS flight attendants in Norway get an on-call rate for being on standby. I'd be rather surprised if pilots didn't get the same.

I believe Ryanair technically employees people out of countries with very low wages and worker protection laws (Ireland, for example), which allows them to skirt some laws that would otherwise apply to them.

Agree. Now I have to do research to see who is being unreasonable. The employees or the employer. Be much easier if the article gave a summary of the issues.

There are a few things mentioned in [0] and [1], unfortunately in german:

- The contracts are based on Irish law and contain rules that violate German employment laws.

- They have to pay for water on the flight, in addition to lots of other things (e.g. health checks, mandatory simulator hours). These costs can sometimes be deducted, but they argue the airline should pay for it in the first place.

- When they are sick, they have to come to the office/airport and state their symptoms in writing.

- Lots of Pilots are hired as contractors, not as full time employees. That would also violate German employment laws.

[0] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2018-07/streik-flugbegleiter-...

[1] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2018-01/pilotenstreik-ryanair...

I think the issues are a bit different in the various countries, but I think the main issue is that Ryanair is barely becoming aware that its employees can make their own collective demands, it seems that after signing deals with the unions they haven't actually listened to the unions in the most basic sense.

For 19 days after the first strike one day by Irish pilots Ryanair management agreed to a mere two hours of meetings, and has since stated it plans to re-base a 100 pilots out of Poland: essentially threatening employees that they would have to change country to keep their jobs.

As for actual demands, I've found mentioned that Irish pilots aren't happy about the rules for how they are rebased, apparently the process isn't very transparent for the employees.