Aer Lingus staff plot holiday stoppage
Shop stewards will meet before the end of this week to decide on a campaign of escalated strike action, which begins on Monday and will continue to Jan 1.
The row centres on a €750m hole in the aviation staff’s pension scheme. However, Siptu is not prepared to sign up to an Ibec-Ictu conciliation process if Aer Lingus insists on new staff work practices in exchange for a €100m contribution to the scheme.
The union will hold a two-hour stoppage on Monday. The airline is putting contingency plans in place to ensure that the action has as little impact on passengers as possible.
These include:
* Moving flights either side of the two-hour period;
* Canceling flights to destinations which have multiple daily trips and moving passengers to alternative flights on the day;
* Sourcing alternative staff for check-in/baggage handling functions;
* Using other airline staff, including management, to carry out those functions.
However, it is likely to be much harder for the airline to cope with escalated plans being formulated by Siptu.
Officials from Shannon, Cork, and Dublin will meet before the end of the week to decide a schedule of action up to Jan 1.
The union says it realises next Monday’s action will not be enough to divert the company from its current path and so it needs to step up its campaign.
Siptu organiser Dermot O’Loughlin said his members had been “battered and beaten” by successive cost-reduction plans at the airline and were not prepared to take any more cuts.
He has written to Ictu and Ibec to seek clarifications on the five-point resolution plan they put to Aer Lingus management and unions last week. In that letter, he insists Siptu will not entertain productivity measures “in whatever guise they are presented” to form any part of the resolution to this crisis. “Accordingly, can you, as authors of this resolution initiative, seek to remove this obstacle from a pensions issue?” he wrote.
He said that, without the removal of the productivity measures, Siptu was not prepared to play a role in the talks.
Aer Lingus has been equally unequivocal that it will not inject cash into the ailing pension scheme without a return in the form of new work practices.
“Aer Lingus is seeking employment cost stability over the coming years, and any new arrangements put in place by the company to improve the pension prospects of affected members of IASS will therefore be linked to the strength of the commitment to stabilise employment costs,” the airline said over the weekend.
At this stage it is unlikely the Impact union, which represents most Aer Lingus cabin crew, will be drawn into industrial action. It welcomed the Ibec-Ictu proposals, saying the process “has the potential to quickly move us towards a resolution based on the needs of the company, the pension scheme and the staff concerned”.
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