A website set up to act as a forum for unhappy Ryanair staff who are dissatisfied with their working conditions has been dismissed as an “irrelevance” by the low-cost airline’s personnel director.
The site, www.ryan-be-fair.org, has attracted more than half a million hits since being launched in September last year by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).
Comments posted on the website revealed a “shocking catalogue of misery, low pay and oppression” among the airline’s workers, according the ITF.
However, Ryanair’s personnel director, Eddie Wilson, accused the site of having no credibility, and no evidence of any employee participation on it.
“In the four months since it was launched, the ITF claims this site has recorded just half a million hits,” said Wilson. “In the same period, Ryanair’s own website has recorded more than four billion hits.
“The ITF website… is an irrelevance to Ryanair and our highly-paid workers.”
The federation conceded that it has no way of checking whether postings on the site are from airline employees.
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Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, is well-known for his anti-union stance.
Last year, the company attempted to dissuade its pilots from joining the pilots’ union Balpa, amid accusations of staff having to pay for their own training and uniforms, and their pensions being frozen.
