Another winter of strike threats

MORE than 670 redundancies along with pay cuts and new inferior pensions for remaining workers at Aer Lingus mean the former national airline’s passengers face yet another winter of strike threats.

The airline spent yesterday briefing shocked staff in Dublin on the wholesale €97m cutbacks it claims are necessary to have in place by 2011 in order to rescue it from collapse. Those briefings continue in Cork and Shannon today. The company will then consult with unions until November 18 before using those deliberations to decide how to push ahead with its proposals.

SIPTU, which represents ground crew, back office staff and a small number of cabin crew, has said it will not accept the measures and said it will take whatever steps are necessary, including strike, to defend its members’ interests.

However, its members actually account for the smaller share of the first tranche of job cuts being sought by Aer Lingus. The majority of affected workers in that purge, 229 cabin crew and 100 pilots, are represented by IMPACT.

It described the cuts as vicious and punitive, but it would not be drawn on a detailed response until it had considered the implications of the document.

The details published yesterday indicate that, of the staff remaining after the redundancies, pilots and cabin crew in particular face significant cutbacks. As well as 10% pay cuts, pilots will see significant sector, performance and subsistence payment reductions, thought to be worth thousands of euro to them. They will also be expected to adjust to new flight time limitations. Pilots have a separate pension scheme and that will be hit by a reduction in contributions from Aer Lingus from 21% of their salary to 9%.

Another significant announcement which affects pilots is the airline’s plan to sign up to an Airline Operating Certificate in Britain. As well as allowing it to operate flights out of the EU, that would also mean that, if pilots do not sign up to the measures, the airline could theoretically draft in pilots from outside Ireland to operate flights.

SIPTU yesterday said that, as well as expecting its members to accept up to 10% pay cuts in some cases, the airline has also abandoned the terms of the last national wage agreement. Unions and the company had previously agreed that the payments would be paused for a number of months given the financial climate, but SIPTU national industrial secretary Gerry McCormack said Aer Lingus was now saying those increases were gone completely.

SIPTU plans to call a national meeting of its shop stewards early next week and the union said it would be seeking clarification from management on the proposals ahead of that meeting.