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Europe news: Aer Lingus, union reach deal to avert strike
Posted by:Mark 47 days ago • Discuss
DUBLIN, Ireland – Aer Lingus and Ireland's largest union reached a tentative labor deal Thursday that removes the threat of an imminent strike from the loss-making airline. The Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union, known as SIPTU, had said its members would begin withdrawing from work Monday if the airline proceeded with plans to lay off unionized staff in favor of outsourced, nonunion workers — including new cabin crews recruited in the United States. Emerging Thursday from more than a week of negotiations, Aer Lingus chiefs and SIPTU negotiators said they had agreed on a compromise that would require Aer Lingus workers to accept weaker terms of employment. Aer Lingus, in exchange, would defer for the moment its threat to outsource some work. SIPTU negotiator Teresa Hannick said its Aer Lingus members — chiefly ground crew, baggage handlers and office staff — would be balloted on the plans over the next week. She declined to reveal specifics of the proposed changes. In a statement, Aer Lingus said it would set aside its outsourcing plans if SIPTU economists can demonstrate that Thursday's package will deliver euro50 million more than $62 million in annual savings from the payroll. "However, until these savings are verified and confirmed by the union, the outsourcing plans remain on the table," the Aer Lingus statement said. Aer Lingus says it wants to cut 1,300 employees from its 4,300-member staff and hand over control of some operations — particularly baggage handling in Ireland and cabin crews on its U.S. routes — to nonunion workers. The airline says it has given its unionized employees pay increases over the past three years averaging 8 percent annually and this cannot continue, particularly because the company has fallen into the red this year and forecasts wider losses in 2009. The airline is still in negotiations with another union, Impact, which represents pilots and flight attendants. That union opposes management plans to close cabin-crew bases at London's Heathrow Airport and at Shannon Airport, western Ireland, as well as the idea of hiring American-based cabin crew to staff Aer Lingus' trans-Atlantic services. Aer Lingus has repeatedly battled labor unions since the government privatized the state-owned airline in 2006. The company's biggest shareholders — rival Irish airline Ryanair, Aer Lingus employee-controlled trusts, and the government — have suffered heavy losses. On Thursday, before the labor deal was announced, Aer Lingus shares fell 4.4 percent to a new all-time low on the Irish Stock Exchange of euro0.98 $1.23, less than half their flotation price two years ago.
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