SIPTU, the Irish trade union, is to call general meetings of its members in Aer Lingus for next week following an emergency meeting of shop stewards on Thursday, to save Aer Lingus.
These meetings will brief members on developments regarding government policy towards the national airline, including the meeting with the Minister for Transport, Mr Martin Cullen, this afternoon.
Last Thursday morning’s emergency meeting agreed to ballot members for industrial action if necessary to protect members’ pay, conditions and pensions, in the event of privatisation.
Among concerns expressed by members was lack of consultation by the company about issues such as agreement on core staffing levels, job evaluation, reward and recognition for change, and pensions.
Many members also expressed concern over public interest aspects of the proposed privatisation in the light of other privatisations such as eircom and B&I, which eventually became part of Irish Ferries.
Asked if the union policy represented an escalation, SIPTU National Industrial Secretary Michael Halpenny said the union was acting through procedures and any element of escalation in the situation had been introduced by the government side.
Aer Lingus group of unions and ICTU was to meet the Minister for Transport yesterday afternoon.
SIPTU shop stewards from Cork, Dublin and Shannon met in ALSA, Dublin Airport, on Thursday morning to hear a report back from a meeting between Union officials and the Aer Lingus advisors.
SIPTU’s National Industrial Secretary, Michael Halpenny said that ‘even with a government decision on the privatisation of Aer Lingus imminent, the situation with regard to the pension deficit is still unclear.
‘Management have only now forwarded a copy of the strategic business plan to the Union – well over a month after they said they would let us have it.
‘Significant elements of the current business plan – including the numbers of permanent jobs – remain unresolved.’
The past history of the dispute includes the leaking of an Aer Lingus document on how to make staff leave.
On 26 July 2005 SIPTU National Industrial Secretary, Michael Halpenny, has told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport that if Aer Lingus is to have a future ‘it cannot be based on this document, or any part of it – and it should not be based on privatisation’.
He was responding to questions from deputies and senators after making a presentation on how HR management had attempted to make the working environment of staff so uncomfortable that they would avail of the latest redundancy package.
Most employees believed they had a long term future with the national carrier but over 1,600 subsequently applied for the package.
Aer Lingus Chairman John Sharman tried to distance senior management from the document but Mr Halpenny and his colleague, SIPTU Dublin Regional Secretary Patricia King, said that some of the company’s initial presentations to staff included ‘environmental push factors’ such as changes in shift patterns which would make the job significantly less attractive, especially to staff with family commitments.
Some staff were told their jobs were being abolished or that they personally had no future in the company.
Halpenny said that some individuals subjected to ‘tap on the shoulder’ tactics were so upset and humiliated by the experience that they failed to tell their partners, let alone the union.
The leaking of a confidential HR Business Plan to the media had had a ‘devastating’ effect on Aer Lingus employees and had confirmed the union’s worst fears. ‘We now find from the recent revelations that far from working through partnership with the unions on a voluntary solution to the challenges posed by the company – the employer was discussing in a clinical, dispassionate, way how to engineer pressure on members individually and collectively to leave.’
The effect on industrial relations in the company had been ‘corrosive and extremely damaging in a situation where members are already unsettled by yet another cost cutting plan and proposals to privatise their company over their heads’.
There was now an urgent need for ‘full transparency’ by the company.
‘If Aer Lingus is to have a future it cannot be based on this document, or any part of it.
‘Aer Lingus’s loyal and committed workforce, the customers they serve, the company itself and the community at large deserve better. If there was ever a reason why people should be organised in a trade union this is it.’
With this history of the struggle behind them, Aer Lingus shop stewards are determined to fight privatisation, and defend the wages, jobs, and pensions of their members.
