Aer Lingus has insisted customers will not be disrupted due to a planned ballot for strike action by cabin crew.
The trade union Impact, which represents cabin crew at the airline, said yesterday it would ballot for strike action as part of an ongoing dispute over revised working hours.
Under the terms of a restructuring plan agreed last March, flight time for cabin crew was to be increased to 850 hours per year.
There has been disagreement on how the increased working hours this would work in practice. Impact maintained yesterday that Aer Lingus had proceeded unilaterally to force changes to cabin crew rosters and to terms and conditions of employment.
The union said the ballot was to give approval for industrial action up to and including strike action. It is understood that initially it would involve a work-to-rule within contract and for withdrawal of flexibility.
Aer Lingus said today it was disappointed the union has decided to ballot "for a third time" on the restructuring plan.
"The airline wishes to reassure its customers that there will be no disruption to their travel plans whatsoever arising out of this latest development," it said.
The airline said it was "deeply regrettable" that four months after reaching an agreement following five months of talks and two separate ballots, that Impact cabin crew had "deliberately chosen the eve of the August bank holiday to "threaten" customers.
It said Aer Lingus was a company "on the verge of profitability, having achieved groundbreaking agreements with all staff in the airline on fundamental and necessary changes".
"These changes encompass reductions in pay, redundancies and increases in productivity. Impact cabin crew initially voted 64 per cent against these changes and subsequently voted overwhelmingly in favour of change by 93 per cent.
"While we are at a loss to understand why another ballot is necessary, we strongly urge a 100 per cent turnout for it. We will even go so far as to allow this ballot to be held on paid company time."
The airline said it had "the highest respect for every process of negotiation, engagement and arbitration".
"We now must move forward to fully implement what has been agreed by over 75 per cent of Aer Lingus staff."
It said it welcomed the ballot and the "clarity" it would deliver, adding it had "the means to deal with every outcome".
The union earlier said that the proposed industrial action would include a withdrawal of labour "should Aer Lingus attempt to take action against any individual Impact cabin crew member".
It is unclear at present how such industrial action would affect flight services at the airline if it is backed by cabin crew members of Impact.
Details of how the new 850-hour flight-time requirements would work were to be finalised in talks between the union and management at the Labour Relations Commission.
But the union said an arbitration process at the Labour Relations Commission on the issue had been unsuccessful while attempts to resolve it in direct talks between the parties had also failed to produce an agreement.
Impact said ballot papers for industrial action were posted to members of its cabin crew branch yesterday and that the ballot would close at 2pm on Monday, August 9th.
It said in the event of the ballot being passed, a minimum of seven days notice would have to be served to Aer Lingus before industrial action could commence.
This means any industrial action would not commence until the second half of August at the earliest.
Impact official Christina Carney said the implementation of the new 850 hours flight-time target was achievable within the terms of existing agreements and contracts of employment of cabin crew.
“We see no reason for the company to breach those contracts and agreements in order to achieve this. However, the airline has proceeded unilaterally to force changes to cabin crew workers’ terms and conditions of employment,” she said.
In a letter to cabin crew members which accompanied the ballot paper, Ms Carney stated: “We regret to have to consider the taking of industrial action, but the company’s behaviour has left us with no choice. The purpose of the action is to protect cabin crew contracts and to ensure that the contracts are honoured and agreements are upheld.”
Initially cabin crew at Aer Lingus voted to reject the company’s cost-saving plan.
However, they later reversed their position following an announcement by Aer Lingus chief executive Christoph Mueller that the airline would make all 1,200 cabin crew redundant and re-employ most on inferior terms and conditions.
The company said 230 cabin crew would be made compulsorily redundant and that they would receive only their statutory entitlements.
