Aer Lingus cost cuts may prompt industrial action

AER Lingus is to push through a huge cost-saving programme in a move likely to lead to protests and possible industrial action.

The company will contact worker representatives by phone and letter this morning to inform them they are upping the ante on Programme for Continuous Improvement 2007, which will lead to:

Cuts in workers’ wage packets.

Changes in working hours and rotas.

Reduction in holiday entitlement and overtime for staff.

It will save the company €9 million a year.

Abuse of existing working agreements has led, according to the airline, to pay packets of about 17,000 higher than equivalent Ryanair workers.

The unions claim that pay assessment is skewed by the airline, by including the rates of senior management in their pay surveys.

The exact details of what the airline is telling its workers today will not emerge until later this afternoon.

Earlier this year, the union threatened to ground the airline with strike action if it tried to push through PCI07.

That action was only called off at the last minute after crisis talks in the Labour Court.

However, the court said it was satisfied that the current economic circumstances at Aer Lingus justified the management seeking to obtain further cost savings at the airline. It did, however, recommend compensation be paid to its staff.

Both sides agreed to enter talks on all the issues related to the changes.

Information was exchanged between the two sides for several months, but the process took a negative turn when Aer Lingus boss Dermot Mannion wrote a letter to the unions saying the process must be wrapped up by August 1.

The airline also said it was not going to keep going through industrial relations procedures on the issue when the Labour Court had made its recommendation.

The matter was somewhat sidelined by events at Shannon, but throughout the company has continued to work on its strategy and the controversial fruition of that will be unveiled to the unions today.

It is understood that as well as dealing with its dispute with pilots in Belfast, the company has decided to bring PCI-07 to a head now because it is the slowest part of the year in terms of passenger numbers and any industrial action would be least disruptive now.