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2007

SIPTU says Aer Lingus management has no conception of social partnership or social responsibility in its new attack on workers' pay and conditions

Date Released: 03 Oct 2007

SIPTU is calling a meeting of its workplace representatives from Dublin, Cork and Shannon in response to the pay freeze and ultimatum on cutbacks by Aer Lingus Chief Executive Dermot Mannion. Following this the union will be demanding a meeting with Mr. Mannion to challenge his decision and the basis on which it was made.

“Aer Lingus has sunk to a new low in threatening our members with a pay freeze because they haven’t agreed to the company’s cost cutting plan, involving cuts in the earnings of many members of between €4,000 and €5,000 per annum”, SIPTU National Industrial Secretary Michael Halpenny said this afternoon.

“It is even worse when you consider that the Chief Executive himself reportedly earned €982,000 this year in respect of his work over the preceding twelve months and that the company convened a general meeting to sanction, amongst other things, a new long term incentive bonus programme for an undisclosed number of managers for pushing through pay cuts.

“In the process, Aer Lingus management has reneged on both local and national agreements between the Social Partners under T2016.  Further, it is in breach of commitments entered into prior to privatisation that it would honour such agreements. 

“The company is also in breach of Labour Court Recommendation 18550, last March, which only allows it to open new bases provided there is no adverse impact on the job security of existing staff.  Clearly in the case of Shannon it has done the opposite. It appears that Aer Lingus’s only strategy for the future is to take money and jobs off the workers and transfer the value to senior management and the big investors.

“Our members are not going to succumb to this kind of blackmail.  They are entitled to expect all agreements, including the pay provisions of T2016, to be honoured. They are entitled to expect that management will adhere to normal industrial relations procedures including those laid down in T2016.  Above all they are entitled to respect as workers and not have to endure these attempts by management to bully them into submission.”





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