SIPTU plans are national sabotage

SIPTU, the country’s largest trade union, is planning a series of stoppages among its Aer Rianta members at Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports to exploit this country’s presidency of the European Union.

SIPTU has ordered the first of the stoppages for next week to disrupt the meeting of EU Justice Ministers.

The actions of the union are more than a normal protest against the behaviour of the Government. What is planned amounts to national sabotage. SIPTU members among taxi owners and those employed by CIÉ have called for joint protests in an attempt to further frustrate the EU meeting.

Other unions, such as TEEU, Mandate and IMPACT, reacted positively to last week’s letter from Transport Minister Seamus Brennan, promising financial details in relation to the break-up of Aer Rianta.

These unions are not in agreement with the tactics of SIPTU.

Much of the credit for the economic progress of the past 15 years has been attributed to the kind of Social Partnership that recognised the need for a broad community approach to our economic and industrial problems so that as many people as possible could share in the benefits of progress and development.

As a result we have enjoyed unprecedented prosperity in the form of the Celtic Tiger economy.

SIPTU has accepted the benefits of Social Partnership and the extra payments afforded by benchmarking, but having accepted those benefits, it seems to be running away from the responsibilities that those incurred.

This dispute has the potential of disrupting the whole concept of Social Partnership on which so much of our prosperity was developed.

Why is this happening? The union does not trust the Minister for Transport to uphold the promises that he has made in relation to the break-up of Aer Rianta.

He has pledged that it would not lead to any mandatory redundancies, that the pension rights of workers would be maintained, and that workers would retain their present jobs and conditions of employment.

Independent experts have expressed doubts about whether such promises could be upheld in relation to workers at the airports at Shannon and Cork, following the break-up of Aer Rianta.

In view of those doubts, SIPTU’s scepticism about the minister’s promises is understandable, especially in view of the pathetic record of this government with its plethora of broken promises.

However, this does not justify the union’s outrageous attempt to hold the EU for ransom in order to force the minister’s hand.

In the past, different Governments have seized on the various opportunities that the European presidency afforded to showcase what this country has to offer, but SIPTU is trying to upstage things by exhibiting its industrial muscle in blatant disregard for the national interest, and even the long-term interest of its own members.

Instead of demonstrating its influence, SIPTU will be exhibiting the militant intransigence of those leaders who have been spoiling for a fight.

They seem ready to hold anyone hostage to secure their own ends.

This is not the way to win friends or influence people, either at home or abroad.