Half of the pilots operating in Irish-registered airlines are not employed directly by the airline they fly for, an Oireachtas Committee has been told.
Captain Evan Cullen of the Irish Air Line Pilots' Association was before the Oireachtas Committee on the Joint Oireacthas Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Mr Cullen said it was IALPA's view that "these contractor pilots are subjected to bogus self-employment and should be deemed to be employees and not self-employed contractors".
"The convoluted manner in which their services are contracted has been carefully crafted to appear to meet the requirements of Irish law, but should they prove not to comply with the law, then the pilot will be potentially subject to sanction for a contracting arrangement that was effectively foisted on them," Mr Cullen said.
Mr Cullen said that under the Irish version of this model, receiving a contract is subject to the pilot becoming a director and shareholder of a pre-existing limited company.
"That company will typically have between three and eight other directors, but the pilot will not be told who those directors are even when that information is requested," he said.
He said the consequences are that the airlines do not pay employer PRSI contribution and the pilot does not enjoy the benefits or protections of employment law; and rights to participate in any form of collective bargaining and industrial action "are effectively neutralised".
The committee was also told that Ireland's rate of "contractor" pilots is approximately three times that of the European average and a European Commission study found that 93% of self-employment in European aviation is fake.
Thomas Fitzgerald of Unite also told the committee that the highly fragmented nature of the Irish construction sector helps facilitate bogus selfemployment.
"Unite is currently aware of language schools in Dublin coercing workers into bogus self-employment contracts," Mr Fitzgerald said.
