Created on Saturday, 20 March 2010 10:16 Written by Christopher Donnelly
The decision to make redundant all of ‘Aer Lingus’ 1,200 cabin crew (270 permanently) and then rehire most on a lower wage and longer working hours, has been met with fierce resistance from the 1,000 strong IMPACT union at the airline. The airline announced these plans for job cuts, after restructuring plans were introduced due to 66.2 million Euros worth of losses in 2009. Job cuts and restructuring are part of plans at Aer Lingus to save 97 million Euros by 2011, in order to save the airline from bankruptcy.
However, these plans have been rejected in a Ballot by IMPACT once, but have recently decided to ballot again according to sources involved in the negotiations with the Labour Relations Commission.
IMPACT cabin crew members have also been subject to bullying by airline management after the decision was made to only allow the statutory minimum redundancy payment of 2 weeks pay per year of service for workers in opposition. This is in contrast to the six weeks per year of service for the 440 ‘well behaved’ workers at other unions who accepted the voluntary redundancy payment.
Support for IMPACT also came on St. Patrick’s day across the Atlantic, where ‘United Airlines’ staff in Washington and Chicago held protests against the joint United Airlines/Aer Lingus plans to use outsourced labour on a new route from Washington to Madrid. We will no doubt see more of this in Britain where ‘British Airways will almost certainly prepare to draft in under trained scab workers in a shameful attempt to break the ‘UNITE’ union in their upcoming industrial action, whilst sacrificing public safety.
Safety is also at risk onboard Aer Lingus flights in the coming months as cuts in positions such as cabin manager and lower wages coupled with exhausting working hours for crew will all sacrifice public safety. What is more important in this instance: passenger safety and secure jobs for all, or shareholder profit? What is plainly more beneficial to customers and to workers now is to fully nationalise the company under workers and state control to secure jobs, safety, financial stability and steady ticket prices at the airline.
The resistance of airline staff worldwide now in Ireland, Britain, Germany and America is very clear: not one job loss, not one redundancy. The period of new realism that partly fuelled the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy is over now, the workers are fighting back.