Ryanair running drug tests on its employees in Belgium

[andorra-airport]

The following is written at AirObserver's Blog, May 25.


When you’re 10 000 meters up in the sky, you sure might not want your pilot to be higher than you are. Ryanair seems to be taking that quite seriously. Today, Belgian newspaper L’Avenir revealed the Irish low-cost is running intensive anti-drug controls on its employees in the country. While I can’t help but understand that the company’s exploited, overworked employees might want to chill out from time to time, apparently Ryanair doesn’t feel the same about employees using.
According to a statement made by an anonymous employee, the airline has put increasing pressure on its cabin crew for the past three weeks. Every week, these have apparently been subjected to compulsory haircuts by an nurse sent from Ireland. Shaved hair are then sent to laborities to be subjected to drug test. Every control a sample of hair 3x4cm thick – taken from the back of the skull for women, behind the ears for men – is cut. If the tests come back positive, employees are politely asked to leave the company.
The test used to be run once a year but they’ve become systematic these last weeks, leading to 21 employees being fired. Further than the increased pressure on employees, the degrading practice is apparently illegal in regard of Belgian law. Ecolo, the Belgian Green Party, has already denounced these tests as an outrage and called for the passing of a law forcing Belgian transport workers to be subjected to Belgian’s law.
The passing of such a law surely wouldn’t please Ryanair as it would surely entail paying employer contributions in Belgium for workers stationned in the airline’s Charleroi base. A context that is not without similarities with the case of Ryanair’s Marseille base in France last year. Furthermore, if Belgian union seize the matter it could offer them an entry point into a company that still does not recognizes unions.

http://airobserver.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... n-belgium/

[sean1982]

First, we are not exploited, nor overworked. Like everybody in europe we can only fly 900 hours à year. I earn about 3 times as much as my mum, who has been on THE employment marketing for +35 years

Second, everybody signed their contract which gives Ryanair THE right to perform those tests, which in Ireland is pretty normal.

Third, if Belgium would force Ryanair to accept a union or belgian employment contract, they would simply and quickly close the base wich would put 3500 people in the charleroi region out of a job. Not sure how Isabelle durant or di Rupo is going to explain that to their voters.

Final thought, it's all to easy after being asked to leave for using drugs on the job, to slate your employer in the press

[luchtzak]

Professor Blanpain stated in a newspaper that those drug tests are totally illegal in Belgium!

[earthman]

Just because you sign a contract does not mean that it is valid.

[airazurxtror]

Drug and alcohol tests are not illegal in Belgium, contrary to what says that professor (who is he ?).
Evidence of that : they are routinely performed by the police on car and truck drivers.
They are not illegal either on the workplace in Belgium. They just have to be approved by the "Conseil d'Entreprise - Ondernemingsraad" and the mood of performing them must be included in the "Règlement de Travail - werk reglement".

[euroflyer]

That should be - in one form or another - normal procedure in an industry like this all over Europe and I would guess it is indeed. I know it is widely being done in other industries with people working in 'sensitive areas' (pharmaceutical and chemical industry for example). Of course works councils or whatever bodies are in place need to be and should be informed and consulted and privacy protection rules must be followed; but the fact that those tests do take place is rather positive from my point of view ... IF the fact in the report above is correct that 21 employees have been fired because (why exactly ??) they were consuming illegal drugs regularly (or why ??) than it was indeed time to introduce tougher controls here!

[regi]

I abstained to react on this item when it was anounced last week, to proof I am not an addicted Ryanair basher.
First of all: the picture shows staff of Airasia. I don't understand the connection.

What those drug tests concerns, it all depends on legislation. If an employee has underwritten an Irish contract with this addendum, he shouldn't complain.
What Belgian legislation concerns it depends on the CAO as Airazurxtror already explained.
Last week it was also anounced that the Belgian military fired personnel because of drug related problems.

But now comes some doubt: I understand that Sean probably cannot answer because I assume his contract probably forbids to make contract details public. So somebody else than: why does Ryanair not fire personell if tested positive but asks them to leave the company?
Could it be that Ryanair wants to avoid legal problems with personnel who contests the tests? And a hair test does show use in the past ( up to a year I think ) , but doesn't give a clue about the amount being used. And a hair test also doesn't tell if the person is under influence at the moment of that test. A urine test is more efficient.

I assume that this message from Ryanair is a double message: to the public that they are concerned about safety; to the personnel that they have to watch out.

If personell of Ryanair is not happy about those stringent measures, they could organise a blow inn: everybody inhales deeply once or twice of a joint, and they all will test positive at the next test. I wonder what managment will do if all personnel tests positive.
By the way: I don't support drug abuse, as a concerned parent who saw the destructive impact on his child of occasional marihuana use.
And we think too easely about marihuana when it goes about those drug tests. For some jobs, it is even forbidden to have traces of "innoscent" tranquilizers, even sleeping pills. And don't forget that some cauching sirop contains opiate derivates or the synthetic methadon. ( no wonder why your baby sleeps as a rose when you give it adults syrop )

[sean1982]

People left before they could be asked to leave :-s

[regi]

People left before they could be asked to leave :-s

So the moment they knew the test was positive they left by themselves? Sounds as the best solution.
Is better on a resumé than " being fired because of breach of contract in casu drug abuse"