Batten down the hatches - Pay policies home to roost

BESIEGED Ryanair has had to offer pilots up to €12,000 to forego some of their holidays.

This is a direct consequence of a worldwide shortage of pilots. Industry leaders at the Paris Air Show earlier this year were told that within a decade the global airline industry faces a massive shortfall of pilots. The world’s commercial fleet is expected to grow by 12,000 aircraft to roughly 37,000. This means 440,000 active pilots will be needed. Today there are just 290,000.

Better pay might avert that crisis.

On another plane, agency doctors have walked out of hospitals over pay cuts. Some communities struggle to replace retiring doctors as they cannot make a living. In Britain NHS doctors, nurses and cleaners have taken strike action over pay. Irish teachers may do the same over the two-speed pay deals. Last year gardaí threatened an illegal strike and were rewarded with a €50m pay rise. Government has conceded that the €180,000 paid to former Garda commissioner Noírín O’Sullivan may not be enough to attract an ideal candidate.

Taken in isolation these cases hardly suggest fundamental change. However, taken together they show that workers have had enough of the work-and-pay policies that have grievously undermined their position over the last decades.

The average cost of renting a home in the Republic jumped by 6.6% in the year to the end of June so this conflict is certain to intensify. Batten down the hatches.