Dublin Airport Authority is to ask the High Court next Friday to restrain threatened industrial action by Siptu that would effectively close down Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports.
The authority was today granted leave to give Siptu short notice of its intention to seek injunctions restraining the proposed strike actions.
Senior counsel for the DAA Brian O’Moore told Ms Justice Maureen Clarke that the authority had been given notice of the action by Siptu on September 11th following a ballot of members in July last.
Mr O’Moore, who appeared with Mr Tom Mallon, said there were issues between the trade union and the DAA in connection with a pension scheme known as the Irish Airlines Superannuation Scheme.
Negotiations had been ongoing under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission with Siptu to resolve these issues.
He told the court the DAA was involved in separate agreements relating to two critical groups of workers employed by the authority, the fire and police service and the security search unit.
These agreements provided that Siptu would not engage in any strike, walk-out or suspension of work and that all work issues would be resolved through the Labour Court and the labour relations mechanism.
Mr O’Moore said there were ongoing negotiations relating to the pension issues and the DAA claim it would be a breach of existing agreements if any industrial action was to go ahead.
The judge said it appeared to the court the DAA had a reasonable cause of action and that it was appropriate in the public interest she should grant short service of the authority’s intention to seek injunctions next Friday.
Mr O’Moore said Siptu had been told by the DAA yesterday that if the authority did not hear from them by nine o’clock today the authority would make its application to the court.
The court allowed service to be made on the union by e-mail and on Mr Dermot O’Loughlin, the union official who had notified the Dublin Airport Authority of the proposed work stoppages from next Monday.