Agree. Now I have to do research to see who is being unreasonable. The employees or the employer. Be much easier if the article gave a summary of the issues.
- The contracts are based on Irish law and contain rules that violate German employment laws.
- They have to pay for water on the flight, in addition to lots of other things (e.g. health checks, mandatory simulator hours). These costs can sometimes be deducted, but they argue the airline should pay for it in the first place.
- When they are sick, they have to come to the office/airport and state their symptoms in writing.
- Lots of Pilots are hired as contractors, not as full time employees. That would also violate German employment laws.
[0] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2018-07/streik-flugbegleiter-...
[1] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2018-01/pilotenstreik-ryanair...
For 19 days after the first strike one day by Irish pilots Ryanair management agreed to a mere two hours of meetings, and has since stated it plans to re-base a 100 pilots out of Poland: essentially threatening employees that they would have to change country to keep their jobs.
As for actual demands, I've found mentioned that Irish pilots aren't happy about the rules for how they are rebased, apparently the process isn't very transparent for the employees.