Airline redundancy deal faces scrutiny

CONTACTS were continuing yesterday between Aer Lingus and the Department of Enterprise concerning a controversial ‘leave and return’ redundancy deal involving 715 workers at the airline in 2008.

As part of the agreement 1,073 staff exited the company under a voluntary severance scheme.

Subsequently, 715 staff were re-employed into new roles under significantly different terms and conditions of employment, most seeing their wages reduced by up to 20%. Earlier this week SIPTU, which represents the Aer Lingus workers, highlighted concerns that a staff rebate due to them was being reconsidered by department officials.