The decision dated November 27th, whose rapporteur is the judge advisor Mário Belo Morgado, and communicated today by the high court, concerns the 75 crew members of 'Crewlink, Ireland Lda' who provided services for Ryanair at the Faro air base, covered by the 2020 collective dismissal, “thus revoking the decision of the Évora Court of Appeal”.

“The STJ concluded that, in the absence of a workers' committee, inter-union committee or union committees, workers can form an 'ad hoc' committee representing the workers to be fired, as, in fact, occurred in the specific case”, reads the court statement.

The STJ says that “the legally determined documents were sent to this 'ad hoc' committee, including the company's staffing table, in which it is legally required that only existing jobs in Portugal be included and jobs that exist in Portugal do not have to be included in work from other countries in which the company operates”.

“The STJ also concluded that the failure to send the aforementioned documents to the workers, and sending them to the ‘ad hoc’ committee, does not constitute a reason for the dismissal being illegal”, explains the court.

Challenge

In January 2020, the National Union of Civil Aviation Flight Personnel (SNPVAC) challenged the collective dismissal, stating that workers with 10 years of service at Ryanair would be dismissed based on allegations which, the union claimed, did not correspond to reality.

In September of the previous year, Ryanair had reached an agreement with ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal to maintain the base in Faro – albeit smaller – as well as part of the jobs, but warned that the reduction from three to two planes in base would lead to a decrease of around 80 jobs in hired cabin staff.

According to the union, the Faro base would remain in operation with 55 cabin crew, all from Ryanair and who "were coerced by the airline to sign an addendum to their contract, in which they waived subsidies and retroactive payments until November 2018" .

According to the union structure, the situation in many cases led workers “to give up their entire career”, as some of the crew had worked for more than ten years at the Faro base.

"All those who did not accept these conditions were penalized for four months with an 80% cut in salary, according to the law on intermittent contracts", according to a note from SNPVAC.

According to SNPVAC, the reasons presented by the company for the collective dismissal – a restructuring of the production organisation, delays in the delivery of Boeing 737 Max aircraft and a reduction in operations at the Faro base – "do not correspond to reality".