Aer Lingus unions have reacted angrily to media reports at the weekend that the company may be planning to make nearly a third of its 6,000 permanent staff redundant.
At a briefing two weeks ago, the company indicated to the unions that cutbacks of 1,700, including 700 temporary staff, would be needed to ride out the current crisis affecting international aviation.
Yesterday, the company refused to comment on reports in the Sunday newspapers that redundancies could reach 2,500, which would mean shedding up to 1,800 permanent staff in addition to temporary staff. However, it is understood that the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, has been briefed by Aer Lingus and told that job cuts could be of that magnitude. She is due to brief the Cabinet on the situation tomorrow.
The unions were also taken by surprise last Wednesday when the company notified the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment that it was planning to let 600 permanent staff go fairly quickly. Referring to the latest threatened job cuts, SIPTU national industrial secretary Mr Noel Dowling said last night: "None of this has been discussed with us by the company and it would be ill-advised to proceed with any plan without doing so. Quite frankly I don't believe some of the stuff coming out."
He said SIPTU and IMPACT, the other main union representing staff, are meeting their own financial advisers, Farrell Grant Sparks today "to try and find out what's going on and where these figures are coming from". He said cutbacks of a third made no operational sense, as it would leave the company unable to carry out some of its core schedules.
In a clear reference to the appointment of Mr Tom Mulcahy as chairman of the airline and Mr Bernard Somers as chief executive, Mr Dowling said: "This looks like a bankers' agenda rather than an aviation agenda."
IMPACT assistant general secretary Mr Michael Landers said: "Our position is that whatever the company needs to say, they should be saying it to us. The figures being mentioned are beyond anything envisaged so far."