Jurisdiction over individual contracts of employment. (Some reflections on the judgment of the ECJ september 14, 2017, in joined cases Crewlink and Ryanair)
Abstract
The legal-labor relationship of flight personnel is somewhat complex, especially due to the circumstances in which it is carried out. Unlike what happens in other typical work relationships, in the aerial activity there is no fixed, stable and lasting workplace. The CJEU, in its Judgment 14 September 2017, Cumulative Matters Crewlink and Ryanair, pronounces for the first time on the interpretation of art. 19.2 a) Brussels-I Regulation in order to determine the “place where flight personnel habitually carried out its work”. For this, and taking as reference the existing jurisprudence around the aforementioned provision, the Court of Justice solves the issue by creating a presumption that leads to equating that place with the “base” assigned by the operator to each of the workers. This solution, which could be considered satisfactory, in so far as it provides predictability and legal certainty, ceases to be so from the moment the CJEU itself admits the possibility that the presumption may be relied upon by the “unusual” resort to the “exception clause”, mechanism reserved to the conflict of laws, leaving the door open with it to forum non conveniens in matter of individual contracts of employment.
