In a ruling delivered on Thursday, 14 September (C-168/16 and C-169/16), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided that in disputes relating to their employment contracts, airline crew members have the option of bringing proceedings before the courts of the place where they perform the essential part of their duties vis-à-vis their employer.
Between 2009 and 2011, employees of several nationalities were hired by Ryanair or by Crewlink established in Ireland. All the employment contracts were drafted in English, subject to Irish law and included a jurisdiction clause providing that the Irish courts had jurisdiction. In those contracts, it was stipulated that the work of the employees concerned, as cabin crew, was regarded as being carried out in Ireland given that their duties were performed on board aircraft registered in Ireland. Those contracts nevertheless designated Charleroi airport (Belgium) as the employees’ ‘home base’. Those employees started and ended their working day at that airport, and they were contractually obliged to reside within an hour of their ‘home base’.
In 2011, these workers took the view that these two companies had to comply with Belgian law and took the matter to the Belgian courts. The Mons Higher Labour Court, Belgium, which must ascertain whether it has jurisdiction, decided to ask the Court of Justice how to interpret the preliminary ruling.
In consideration of the conclusions made by the Advocate General in April 2017 (see EUROPE 11776), the ECJ pointed out that as regards disputes related to employment contracts, the European rules concerning jurisdiction are aimed at protecting the weaker party. An employee can sue his employer before the courts which he regards as closest to his interests, by giving him the option of bringing proceedings before the courts of the member state in which the employer is domiciled or the courts of the place in which the employee habitually carries out his work.
As regards the determination of the concept of ‘place where the employee habitually carries out his work’, the Court argues that it is necessary in particular to establish in which member state the place from which the employee carries out his transport-related tasks, the place where he returns after his tasks, receives instructions concerning his tasks and organises his work, and the place where his work tools are to be found is situated. In the present case, the place where the aircraft aboard which the work is habitually performed is stationed must also be taken into account.
It should be noted that the Court does not equate the concept of home base in the sense of regulation 392/91 on civil aviation with the concept of a place where the worker habitually carries out their work contained in regulation 44/2001 on civil and commercial jurisdiction, particularly for thwarting circumvention strategies. Nevertheless, the concept of ‘home base’ amounts to a significant indicator to determine, in circumstances such as those at issue, the place from which the employee habitually carries out his work.
Speaking on behalf of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the organisation’s general secretary Steve Cotton explained in a press release that, the ECJ’s ruling “is a defeat for Ryanair and a victory for workers’ rights". According to Mr Cotton, the ruling upholds the fundamental principle of protecting workers' rights “by ensuring that they can hold their employer to account in the country from which they genuinely discharge their duties – not in a nation which they may never have visited and whose courts are foreign and based hundreds of miles from home and the place of work”. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)