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SIPTU accuses Government and State Agencies of paralysis and lack of any strategy for saving aviation sector jobs

Date Released: 14 May 2009

SIPTU Branch Organiser Pat Ward has accused the Government of “paralysis and lack of political will when it comes to saving jobs in the aviation sector. Their only priorities seem to be balancing the public finances and bailing out the banks. Meanwhile the jobs of highly skilled workers are being abandoned.”

Talks are currently taking place this morning at the airport between SR Technics and the unions. The company has confirmed that the Auxiliary Power Unit and Landing Gear equipment have been sold. Talks have now begun with interested parties on expressions of interest in the base maintenance and garage facilities at the plant. These are due to conclude by May 22. Talks on the sale of the line maintenance and garage facilities are to conclude by May 27 but unions have still to learn when they can meet with bidders.

“In many respects the problems we face flow from the drift of Government policy over the past 12 years”, Mr Ward said during a break in the talks. “They slashed taxes and hoped that speculators and ‘fast buck’ deals would generate enough revenue to keep the show on the road. The privatisation of Aer Lingus was part of that drift and the dire problems we now face in places like North Dublin and the Mid-West are among the consequences.

“Any Government with an ounce of political will and morsel of business acumen would have ensured that SR Technics was not allowed to waltz away from its Dublin plant without having to address the €26 million pensions deficit, the €20 million leaseback arrangement with the Dublin Airport Authority or the asset stripping operation now taking place with regard to the sale of the auxiliary power unit and landing gear equipment.

“SR Technic’s strategy from the start was to get out of Ireland on the cheap and do it in a way that ensured whatever was left could not form the basis for a new operation that could compete on equal terms in the international aviation maintenance sector. They know that Dublin is well able to compete with its other plants if it had been left with the means to do so and we are anxious to talk to bidders about cost savings that can be made.

“The Government should have ensured that if there was to be a hard landing it would be at the expense of SR Technics and its wealthy backers such as Mubadala and Dubai Aerospace rather than the workers. Some employees have given over 40 years of their lives to the plant and won’t even get the pensions they paid for. If this Government was half as good at dishing out tough medicine to speculators and bankers as it is at doing it to ordinary working people we might see some hope at the end of the tunnel – assuming it is a tunnel and not a dead end.”