Originally Posted by
Flytolive
You make some strong points. I have heard scope protections are relatively non-existent compared to U.S. airlines so carriers like Lufthansa with all their wholly owned subsidiaries are quite vulnerable. It sounds to me like the EU itself is much of the issue from our perspective.
If the EASA is anything like the FAA is probably irrelevant from a business perspective.
Well, scope clauses do exist, i have written a pretty strong one myself as a union rep. But how it will hold up in court is a completely different case and does depend on each countries regulation. And of course, union contracts end at each countries border, the EU is after all not a country like the US, it is a rather loose conglomerate of countries with very different regulations in many areas, and common ones in others. Labor law, except a very minimal standard (at least 7 days off a month, 4 weeks of paid vacation, stuff like that), is not common law.
So a scope clause in germany does not hold sway in the other 28 EU countries plus the 3 EAA countries. Lufthansa mainline actually had a scope clause for a long time, and their management worked with that. In the end the union lost a court case and now they do not have any scope clause at all. Getting a company in a different country, or just building one up is an easy way to get around stuff in your home country.