{"id":519,"date":"2016-02-19T09:47:11","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T07:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=519"},"modified":"2019-07-23T11:46:32","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T09:46:32","slug":"how-to-kill-a-zombie-european-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=519","title":{"rendered":"How to kill a zombie, European style"},"content":{"rendered":"We have been investigating how best to kill a zombie. Apparently, whatever your choice of weapon, the key is to aim for the head and don\u2019t miss. Oh, and don\u2019t let it bite you.\r\n\r\nThe zombie in question is a University of Ghent study<\/a> on atypical employment in the aviation sector. As discussed in this month\u2019s Aviation Intelligence Reporter<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>many are treating this study as Gospel evidence that the use of indirect employment contracts in the aviation industry poses a risk to working conditions and safety.\r\n\r\nThose who have read the report will wonder why it\u2019s getting so much attention. The report does not actually find evidence of a link between atypical employment and working conditions. Meanwhile, it explicitly concludes that safety concerns are unrelated to whether a crew member is typically or atypically employed.\r\n\r\nBut don\u2019t let the truth get in the way of a political agenda. The report has found its way into a number of European parliamentary questions in the last year, with MEPs pleading that Something Must Be Done. The only good news in this is that you can be sure that few, if any, of the MEPs have actually read the report. It would be more worrying if they had.\r\n\r\nIt is worth pointing out that the study was commissioned by, amongst others, the European Cockpit Association (ECA). This report forms part of their persistent and loud campaign for\u2026. well, we\u2019re not quite sure what they are trying to achieve given that even their own research cannot identify a problem that needs addressing.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately for the ECA, the University of Ghent study has gained little traction with the decision-makers, as evidenced in the European Commission\u2019s recent Aviation Package (see this month\u2019s Aviation Intelligence Reporter<\/em> for more discussion on this). The Commission\u2019s response is always the same: aircrew are protected by European social legislation and all airlines must abide by strict safety rules regardless of how they\u00a0employ their crew.\r\n\r\nStill the questions continue to come in.\r\n\r\nIn its most recent responses, there are signs that the Commission is finally losing patience. It has recently stated that it will only assess any concerns about atypical employment in the aviation industry where there is supporting concrete cases and facts. That\u2019s a not so subtle way way of saying that the University of Ghent study does not meet this standard. Furthermore, the Commission is at pains to point out that atypical employment is actually less common in the aviation industry compared to other sectors and the economy as a whole.\r\n\r\nDon\u2019t expect this to be the last we hear of the University of Ghent study. Like a terrifying zombie, it seems to come back time and time again no matter what the Commission throws at it. Time to fetch a bigger weapon?","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have been investigating how best to kill a zombie. Apparently, whatever your choice of weapon, the key is to aim for the head and don\u2019t miss. Oh, and don\u2019t let it bite you. The zombie in question is a University of Ghent study on atypical employment in the aviation sector. As discussed in this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-dumping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":523,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}