Aer Lingus apart, industrial relations at their brightest

THE current quagmire of industrial disharmony at Aer Lingus apart, figures released yesterday suggests that relations between Irish employees and employers have never been more cordial.

The statistics from the Central Statistics Office showed that in the second quarter of this year there were just 300 days lost to industrial disputes.

That may sound high but the action in question was just one day on which 300 workers at one company did not work. The dispute was at the Liebherr crane company in Kerry and it was over pension allocation and the implementation of a ban on overtime.