SIPTU workers propose cost-saving measures for airport authority

SIPTU members working for the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) have put forward proposals which could allow the authority to at least partly realise its aim of introducing €40 million in cost savings.

The union has proposed an “employee recovery investment contribution”, which would provide that if the DAA returns to its former growth, workers could return to former salary levels as well as receiving a dividend. Both sides are due to appear at the Labour Relations Commission in the coming days, a move sparked by the company’s cessation of its voluntary severance scheme under which it had hoped to secure 500 redundancies, which, it is understood, has so far only yielded €20m in savings.

According to Industrial Relations News, the SIPTU civil aviation branch says the purpose of its latest proposals “is to help our representatives understand the very many complexities attached to the Dublin Airport Authority’s cost recovery programme” and explores “the difficult and varied solutions to the challenges we face”.

It says its discussion paper also hopes to encourage “the development of all possible alternatives that could assist the maximisation of our input to the cost recovery programme”. The employee recovery investment contribution suggests a set of tiered contributions from workers that might, in time, mean a restoration of pay levels and have some prospect of sharing in any financial uplift experienced by DAA. It would involve:

- Reasonable affordability: “A graduated percentage contribution from an employee’s normal income based on ability to pay.”

- A legal guarantee regarding future benefits “which will arise on yet to be agreed financial and passenger uplifts”.

- Employee’s contribution to be recognised in the DAA’s accounting practices.

As part of the reward for participating within the ERIC, apart from the restoration of pay levels and the sharing of rewards, the advocates of the scheme suggest the company would begin a new pension scheme, in which the employee contribution rate would increase by 2.625% and the employer contribution by 5.625%.

That is particularly pertinent given the threat to the existing pension scheme which could fall into difficulty if Aer Lingus presses ahead with its intention to withdraw from it.