The president of the country's largest trade union Siptu has said that if social partnership is to survive, Government and employer representatives will have to bring into line companies such as Aer Lingus which are in clear breach of national agreements.
He was commenting after Aer Lingus said yesterday that pay increases of 5 per cent due under the Towards 2016 agreement, as well as 2.5 per cent in increments due to staff, would not be paid until the airline's cost-cutting plan was put in place.
Staff at the airline were due to receive a 2.5 per cent increase under the national agreement in their next pay packets. A further 2.5 per cent increase is due to be paid in several months' time.
Siptu chief Jack O'Connor said that the decision by Aer Lingus to introduce an immediate pay freeze until trade unions agreed to the implementation of the €20 million cost-cutting plan had immense implications for social partnership.
Trade union Impact, which represents a large number of Aer Lingus workers, is today expected to press for the National Implementation Body - the main troubleshooting mechanism in social partnership - to intervene.Impact said that the company's move was heavy-handed and provocative. It noted that its branches would meet shortly to determine a response.
Mr O'Connor said that Siptu would be consulting its members on the appropriate response. He added that when inflation was taken into account the pay freeze represented a cut in pay of about 12 per cent for staff at a time when senior management had received lucrative bonus payments.
He said that the Government and employers' representatives had to step up to the mark to defend social partnership. He said that Siptu was tired of carrying the social partnership process on its own.
Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion said that trade unions had refused to co-operate with the implementation of the cost-cutting plan - which is known as the Programme for Continuous Improvement (PCI). He said that the airline wanted to see this implemented by the end of the year.
He added that the time for "talks about talks" was over, but that there was "a very narrow window of opportunity" for further discussions with the unions.
However, Mr Mannion said that any further talks would have to be about the implementation of the PCI. There would be no further discussions on the rationale for the plan, he added. The company, he argued, had engaged in protracted negotiations with trade unions over several months but that no progress had been made.
Mr Mannion also said that the airline had exhausted all the industrial relations machinery of the State. He said that in general all had accepted the rationale for the company's plan. He added that if the cost-cutting plan was implemented in full the payments due would be made.
