Disruptive industrial action by pilots in a long-standing dispute with Aer Lingus should finally draw to a close today as a ballot over a recommended 17.75 per cent pay rise concludes.
Members of the Irish Air Line Pilots Association, which had been looking for closer to 24 per cent in what they claimed was an inflation-offsetting pay claim, have been voting since Thursday of last week on the proposals pieced together by the Labour Court to resolve a work to rule and strike action that saw the travel plans of more than 85,000 passengers disrupted as close to 600 flights were cancelled over three weeks.
Coming in the middle of the airline’s peak summer season, the dispute has been damaging for Aer Lingus.
And it might not be off the hook yet.
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The consensus is that a majority of the 760 pilots will accept a deal to bring an end to a row that has been festering for close to two years.
But other unions in the airline have been examining the terms of the pilots’ deal in detail. Aer Lingus had agreed a pay deal of 12.25 per cent with them. That agreement has a clause allowing those unions to reopen negotiations if any better terms were offered elsewhere in the airline.
That is why Aer Lingus management was so resolute that any pay deal above that level would require additional productivity measures from the pilots. The new deal does go some way on this. How far, and whether any concessions were worth the extra five percentage point increase in pay for workers who are already among the highest paid in the airline is what will be taxing the minds of the representatives of other workers.
That task will not be made any easier by the fact that the deals are not like-for-like, with the pilots’ deal running for longer than those brokered with the other unions.
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